The Stigmas Of Stacey: Magalluf

Zante's Lagana Beach, Crete's Malia, Mallorca's Magalluf. What do they have in common? They have all been, at different times, flavour of the month for a media desperate to wring whatever sensationalism it can from a drink-sodden youth passed out on a pavement.

They are only three. There are others. And like the British media despatches its packs of journalistic wolves in order to gorge on the bodies that have collapsed under the volume of industrial quantities of what can sometimes be industrial alcohol (as in Zante, for instance) or have taken to a night sky and plunged several floors onto rock-hard concrete, so the media in other countries scavenges for its own stories of sex, drink, drugs and very little rock 'n' roll. Which resort has the reputation for being the drunkest? Not Magalluf. It's Lloret de Mar, and Lloret is where French and Italian youth go to lay into each other. Do the Germans know anything about antics in Magalluf? Not really. They know about Arenal instead; Arenal, where German neo-Nazi skinheads set about black bar workers.

Welcome to the world of tourist post-modernism. Once upon a time, in pre-modern days, Cliff Michelmore introduced an ignorant audience to the attractions of Med resorts. Like Magalluf. They were new, exciting and innocent. Presenters and presentation styles changed along with the modern days of increased familiarity with the resorts. And now the post-modernist age has arrived, one in which the travelogue has been swapped for the reality-show appeal of a camera crew hastily racing to a scene of tourist Sodom and Gomorrah, observed by a girl from Luton who has displaced the Lorraine Chase of long ago (not that Lorraine actually came from Luton).

Poor, naïve Stacey Dooley. She has investigated the already investigated. She could as easily have gone off to Malia, though why would she have needed to bother? It is ten years since Sky put out "Sex On The Beach", a documentary which highlighted the drinking binges and sexual promiscuity of young British holidaymakers. Somewhere was needed for Stacey to go to, and as Magalluf has acquired current media flavour-of-the-month status, Magalluf it was.

Stacey's efforts have been a triumph of unearthing the already known. The lesser known she revealed was that the mayor of Calvià isn't a magician - he admitted to not being one - but then mayors rarely are magicians. The greatest problem she presented to a world already in possession of the facts was that of the mugging prostitutes and their organised-crime pimps. You don't actually need the aid of a shoulder-held video camera to observe their activities; just place yourself on a convenient terrace and you can do so live. Manu Onieva's apparent insouciance may reflect the fact that the professional criminal gangs are a Guardia matter, not one that the local police can handle.

The known knowns about Magalluf have been known for long enough. They may have become more exacerbated knowns, but then who helps to make them so? The Staceys of this media world. And will her investigation make any difference? Possibly it will in that it will increase Magalluf's popularity. Bad publicity? Free publicity. All publicity is etc., etc.

Magalluf is popular with the youth end of the tourism market precisely because of Stacey's stigmas (well, not the prostitutes or death by balcony fall perhaps). Magalluf, like Malia, Lagana, Arenal, Lloret and others, and for youth from different European countries (so please, no singling out of the British alone), is popular as it is represents a rite of passage. It is a location for National Disservice in the name of getting laid, getting drunk and getting admitted to hospital. It is an initiation that becomes habit until such time as youth realises it no longer is youth. 

You reap what you sow. How did Magalluf become like Magalluf? Only partly because youthful tourists made it so. But they are mere agents of others' designs, included among whom are tour operators. Ever since Club 18-30 was first conceived (and so the history of such organised alcohol and sex-fuelled youth tourism is now heading towards middle age), tour operators have jumped onto the bandwagon, recognising a fruitful means of filling aircraft and hotel places. Magalluf has been a collective exercise in the exploitation of the easily and willingly exploitable - the youth. And the consequence is what you have, to which one pointless solution is to change its name. Sorry, you can take the dirty water out of the name of Magalluf, but - unless the resort's transformation involves the whole resort - you won't take the dirty dancing, drinking and sex out of the resort.  


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.