Europe’s war on British tourists may have backfired

“It is no wonder that we Brits are viewed less and less favorably when the strongest voices representing our country The presence on your islands comes from our boozy holiday British ambassadors.”

The Canary Islands are not the only popular holiday destination that is at war with British tourists. The director of tourism for Mallorca, Lucía Escribano, stated in November of last year: “We are limiting the number of beds on the island. We want quality, not quantity. Right now we have 300,000 hotel beds and we want less, not more.

“We are not interested in receiving low-budget tourists from the UK, we don’t care if they go to other places, to Greece and Turkey,” he added in an interview with The Sun.

Around 2.3 million British tourists visit Mallorca each year, accounting for more than a quarter of the island’s tourist traffic. If all those visitors were to disappear overnight, Majorca’s overall GDP would take a significant hit.

Anna Nicholas, the Telegraph’s Mallorca expert, has noticed a change in the type of people who visit the island. “Since the pandemic, Mallorca has seen a rise in wealthy visitors in the summer, especially from new markets like North America,” she said. “Although the island thrives on tourism, the locals are interested in finding a more sustainable model.”

Some hotels limit guests to six drinks per day to reduce excessive alcohol consumption. “While bad boy resorts such as Magaluf and Arenal are being gentrified and misbehaving Brits are being hit with huge fines, fancy and expensive new five-star hotels are popping up all over the island,” added Nicholas.

But the change in clientele has introduced new problems in different parts of the island. “Some areas of the island are more expensive and more saturated than others, particularly the valley of Sóller, where I live. The traffic, the lack of parking and the increase in the influx of people have created disturbances and residents are asking for urgent solutions before the next season”, he stated.