Spring Breaks: Where's the quality?

The history of the spring break vacation for university and high-school students can be traced back to a film made in 1960 with the same name as the novel "Where The Boys Are". Prior to this, Fort Lauderdale in Florida had been a destination for college students, but the influx was not huge and nor did it cause any problem. The release of the film changed this. It was a kind of promo for the spring break. The number of students heading for Fort Lauderdale doubled, and so the spring break became an established tradition. By the 1980s, the numbers had reached over a quarter of a million. Residents became distinctly hacked off with noise, damage and drunkenness. Within a short space of time, a change to Florida's drinking law, which raised the age to 21, had all but put an end to the spring break in Fort Lauderdale.

American students moved on to other places where the law was not as restrictive, but the spring break vacation, for all its popularity in the US, took years to cross the Atlantic. It is perhaps surprising that it took so long, but it is now firmly established, and its growth in recent years can probably be attributed to one thing - lower numbers of tourists in the non-peak months of the summer tourism season coinciding with the impact of economic crisis. Resorts and hotels needed different markets, and one that offered itself was the Spanish and European student spring break market.

This Easter in Magalluf, there is an offer for four nights of a "Spring Break Festival Mallorca". It is an offer aimed at Spanish kids and includes entrance to different clubs, drinks and pool parties. Here is just one example of the organised spring break holiday. There are others. Several others.

May is a month when hotel occupancy is not at its highest. In Magalluf and Palmanova it might not even reach 50% of the total hotel places open. 1200 or so Swedish students will thus do nicely for the odd hotel that needs to bump up its occupancy rate and for the odd club owner who wishes to increase low summer season trade. These Swedish students, typically aged 17 and 18, have, so we are told, rather more money to spend than, say, their British counterparts, but it is not solely spend on alcohol. It probably isn't, but who's to say that a good chunk of it isn't. The Swedes as a whole have a reputation for being good tourists, well behaved, well mannered. But there is big attraction other than the sun when it comes to holidaying in Mallorca. Booze is significantly cheaper than back home. It is much more easily obtainable. Assiduous checking of ages is not quite the same as back home.

There is a German tour operator called PartyUrlaub Reisen. It says that Mallorca is more than just binge-drinking and parties. There are crystal-clear waters and picturesque landscapes, but it doesn't dwell on these alternatives. There are gorgeous bodies in skimpy bikinis, bars, clubs and discos to turn night into day. The word "party" in the name should say it all, and this is what is being sold to a German spring break market heading predominantly to Arenal.

Then there is Finalia, the Spanish company which offers later spring breaks. Resort Bellevue Club, Alcudia. 250,000 square metres of paradise beaches, nine pools ... open-air concerts for more than 2000 people etc. etc. This is the "Mallorca sin profes" package, something which, the company's website suggests, has collaborating organisations that include the regional governments of the Balearics and Catalonia. Do these governments know exactly what happens on these vacations? People in Alcudia can tell them. A few weeks of living hell.

To come back to the Swedish students, the organisers of their spring breaks, a company whose address is given as Punta Ballena, offer "four weeks of madness" in May. And where is this madness likely to take place? Well, let's look at the hotels. There is a selection. One of them is the BH Mallorca, the four-star makeover of what was Mallorca Rocks on behalf of the clubowners, Cursach.

No one can blame students wishing to come on holiday and enjoying themselves in a fashion that any of us who were once students ourselves will recognise and appreciate. No one can really blame hotels or tour operators in arranging such holidays. It’s business after all, and if business is quieter at times of the summer season then it has to be sought wherever it exists.

But it is this, the almost desperate need for hotel occupancy and for quieter-month business, which betrays the public relations exercises which would have us convinced that resorts like Magalluf, Arenal, Alcudia and Cala Ratjada are on an upward curve of quality tourist.

Students should not be categorised as “non-quality”, but as a tourist niche they do not fit the profile of the tourist of ever greater quality. And when they are raising merry hell in resorts, elements with the island’s tourism industry might question their own publicity of responsible tourism.


Index for March 2015

Ageism in tourism - 18 March 2015
Alcudia industrial estate - 28 March 2015
Andalusia election - 23 March 2015
Balearics Day - 1 March 2015
Beach exploitation - 11 March 2015
Berlin ITB fair - 6 March 2015
Biosphere and responsible tourism - 13 March 2015
Catalan rumba - 30 March 2015
Daevid Allen - 16 March 2015
Democratic regeneration - 3 March 2015
Eco-tax: Més - 9 March 2015
Goats in Mallorca - 29 March 2015
Irish and Mallorca - 14 March 2015
Love Island, Ses Salines - 17 March 2015
Loyalty and Mallorca branding - 10 March 2015
Palacio de Congresos - 12 March 2015,  21 March 2015
Palma - best place in the world? - 27 March 2015
Performance pay and online reviews - 24 March 2015
Picadors of Mallorca - 15 March 2015
President Bauzá: desperate for a pact with PSOE - 7 March 2015
Representation of the people - 26 March 2015
Saving campaigns: conservation/preservation - 2 March 2015
Sóller prawn fair - 8 March 2015
Son Ferriol - 22 March 2015
Spring breaks - 31 March 2015
Statistics obsession in tourism - 5 March 2015
Sustainable tourism - 19 March 2015
Tourism education - 25 March 2015
Tourism law - 20 March 2015
Working day - 4 March 2015