Worlds Apart: British tourism

Do you reckon that David Cameron has ever seen "Geordie Shore"? On balance, it is probably unlikely, though there was always of course that Paxman interview and its question about a Pink Pussy.

At the same time that the British Prime Minister is to be found luxuriating in a luxury villa in the countryside near to Cala San Vicente, is to be seen taking a civilised cortado at the Club Pollença, which could pass for some days-of-the-Raj, colonial stomping-ground for old buffers wearing pith helmets, and being the all-round toff that he is, down in Maga Land the good businesspeople around The Strip have finally cottoned on to the fact that theirs is the Sodom and Gomorrah resort of Mallorca. What have they been doing all these years? Have they never heard of Shagalluf?

This revelation comes courtesy of MTV España, which has had the good sense to air the Magalluf special from "Geordie Shore", a year after it first went out in the UK. Just one look at the "actors" should tell the businesspeople of Maga all they need to know without having to sit through the broadcast: gym monkeys and two females injected with that much silicon they make Katie Price appear to be an A-cup. They look to have been crafted from a 3D virtual porn movie, which isn't a million miles away from what they are - unreal reality-show stars engaged in simulated (or possibly not simulated) sex acts in the club dens of iniquity to be found in Magalluf.

The bad image of Magalluf just keeps being made worse. If it isn't "Geordie Shore", it is the balcony incidents, the odd street battle here and there, the prostitutes which all conspire to give a dog an even worse name than it already has. But this bad image doesn't stop Britain's youth. Magalluf has been undergoing a renaissance, not one of redevelopment but of increased popularity because, as a BBC Radio One report discovered recently, it is considered to be far better value than Ibiza.

Dave in genteel Pollensa and the Newcastle Eight in Magalluf; the contrast could not be greater. Two worlds, two British worlds collide yet fail to come together, unless they happen to be scrapping with each other for the best seats on Ryanair. One world at one end of the island, the other world at the other. Worlds apart.

British tourism suffers from a bipolar disorder, one encapsulated by Cameron and "Geordie Shore". At the Dave pole of this disorder are the coffee-table images and descriptions, drooled over by the Gideons and Clarissas planning their "authentic" Mallorcan holiday over the morning pomegranate juice in Islington pied-a-terres. At the "Geordie Shore" pole are the Waynes and Kylies on their way to karaoke heaven with Jordan in his baby buggy or, as MTV has so adeptly pointed out, various Cheryl Coles from Newcastle - with augmentation - and their ripped boyfriends. There isn't anything in between. Or at least, this is how Mallorca is more often than not portrayed. It is as if the great mass of the ordinary man, woman and child Brit tourist doesn't exist and nor does the ordinary resort which doesn't pretend to be authentic or is like a war zone by six each morning.

It isn't only British tourism. The Germans manage a similar bipolar misrepresentation: Claudia Schiffer at one end, neo-Nazis in Arenal at the other. But then the media, regardless of nationality, is only interested in either celebrity, the rich and famous and the habitations for the wannabe rich and famous or the Bad News Tour. The rest are of no interest.

This concentration on the two ends of the disorder creates a parody, and so Mallorca ends up, as it has, as either a place of pretension or of violent, sexual tension. To the unfamiliar, therefore, Mallorca becomes a choice between bumping into Dave or into a giant pair of comedy breasts, neither of which is much of a choice.

This parody, though, has existed since the invention of new tourism in Mallorca. For years, it was the "Geordie Shore" (though not as extreme) that dominated, to the extent that Mallorca was a place to be avoided by any tourist with the slightest sense of discernment. It has swung the other way now. The coffee-table image is one that has assumed a pre-eminence. Both are representative, in their own ways, but both are misrepresentative because they miss all that exists in the middle. And what they really miss is the fact that tourism is neither one thing nor the other. It is all things.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.