Mr. Kyle's Holidays

Goodbye, summer. Goodbye, August. Goodbye to 31 days of total ... of total, erm, brown stuff. For the hyper-sensitive, I have changed one word and substituted it with two.

Facebook is a fabulous resource. When you're mulling over what to write, toying with the withholding of state money to various town halls in Mallorca or grants for various trade fairs being stopped while at the same time the building of the Palacio de Congresos is going full steam ahead, Facebook can throw up something altogether more important. Like August.

The bit about the 31 days of total you know what are not my words. They come from Facebook. He knows who he is, as he will also know his reference to "The Jeremy Kyle Show". A commentator will also know who he is, he who has made reference to chav families and scenes from "Benidorm". (I have incidentally deleted the expletives.)

Ok, a bit of context is needed here. These remarks emanate from bar owners in The Mile area of Alcúdia. Less than complimentary about August, they are also less than complimentary about some of the punters to be found in the area. How to win friends and influence potential customers, you might think. Possibly, but the sentiments have not exactly been known not to be aired previously. What they refer to is the fact that August's tourism, if I can be polite, is not of quite the same standard as that of other months of the summer, such as July or September.

The August moan, as I suppose we should call it, has long been with us. Longer certainly than since August 2007 when I wrote about this very subject and wrote about it, moreover, from the point of view of a business in Playa de Muro where the tourist might be thought to be less chav, have deeper pockets and tend not to appear on "The Jeremy Kyle Show". The August moan is most certainly not solely confined to Alcúdia's Mile.

The allusion to "The Jeremy Kyle Show", if you're not quite up to speed with this, is one that characterises tourism punters (the female variety, that is) as being akin to Karen Matthews, though possibly not quite as attractive and mercifully less likely to indulge in fake kidnappings. The Kyle show is inhabited by such people.

The reference, that to the programme "Benidorm", has, for me, some association with the Kyle show. One of the funniest moments in any episode of "Benidorm" was when an Al Jolson tribute ("Mal Jolson") was performing. The look of jaw-dropped, appalled bemusement on the face of Gavin when he realised that he was watching an act who had "blacked up" was both hilarious and probably very similar to my own when I first saw the Kyle show.

This is, of course, extraordinarily unfair on the overwhelming majority of tourists who aren't likely to turn up on the Kyle show and is also unfair on those who are neither chavs nor simply cheapskates. But the point is taken.

However, it's not as if August is the only month when Kyle-like tourism descends on parts of Alcúdia or other resorts. In early June, a month of generally genteel and well-heeled tourism, I happened across some visitors who were staying in a certain hotel not that far from the bars owned by my friends mentioned above.

"It's like 'The Jeremy Kyle Show'," said one.

What we have to deduce from this is that Jeremy Kyle, whether he is aware of it or not, has introduced a whole new category of tourist, a whole stratum of society (British) that is now Kyle-esque. (In fact he probably is aware of it and more than happy that it exists.) His show, and his type of guest, has passed into the popular lexicon. In a sense, it is a great cultural achievement; to have lent your name to a section of society.

No one deserves to be barred from holidaying, whether Kyle-esque or not. Everyone deserves a holiday. Most people would probably agree, so long as some of the holidaymakers were not in their own backyards.

August, peak season, should be a month for businesses to really reap the benefits. That it may not be is not, however, just down to the Kyle-like tourist. It's an expensive month for any tourist, and it is a month which attracts a predominantly family tourist, for obvious reasons, who has forked out heavily on the cost of the holiday alone.

It isn't the best of months. Not as good as it should be. I can totally understand bar owners and others being grateful to see the back of it. Welcome to September.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.