The Balearics Islands government is looking to amp up its fight against rowdy tourism and looking at bringing in new, tougher laws in Majorca and Ibiza
Badly-behaved British tourists could face being banned from the Balearic Islands and sent home on the next available flight.
For years the sun-drenched Spanish islands of Ibiza and Majorca (home to Magaluf) have been the playgrounds of tanked up Western Europeans looking for a place to unwind, take copious amounts of shots and spontaneously break into chants.
It seems that the good times may soon be coming to an end thanks to a new law being put forward by the Balearic region’s new right-wing regional government designed at cracking down on bad behaviour that has left locals at the end of their tether.
The islands’ Head of Tourism Jaume Bauza appeared to confirm overnight holidaymakers who break strict rules that were brought in to crack down on anti-social visitors could be sent home early from their visits and then barred from returning, if new proposals are brought into law.
A drunken tourism decree was agreed at the start of 2020 for certain areas like Magaluf in Majorca and the West End of San Antonio in neighbouring Ibiza. Now law makers in the Balearics are looking to expand the zones to all parts of the island chain.
Under the 2020 laws, fines of up to £50,000 can be levied on holidaymakers caught leaping off hotel balconies. Limits on the amount of alcohol served with meals at all-inclusive hotels were also introduced.
In August it emerged four of the five tourists handed five-figure fines over the summer for climbing between balconies at hotels in Magaluf were British. Calvia Council, which is responsible for the party resort, said that five foreign holidaymakers had been fined for ‘balconing’. They were handed bills of more than £30,000 each and kicked out of their hotels.
Earlier the same month a firm offering illegal booze cruises in Magaluf was hit with a near-£140,000 fine. Council chiefs responsible for the Majorcan party resort said company bosses were caught “red-handed” as they escorted around 130 tourists who had paid nearly £40 each to get onto a boat where loud music was going to be played and alcohol
The pioneering excess tourism crackdown has put an end to pub crawls, happy hours and 2×1 cheap drink offers in areas like Magaluf and San Antonio’s West End. It also stopped new ‘party boat’ licences being issued, with boats that were already licensed banned from embarking or disembarking tourists in certain parts of the islands.
Mr Bauza told reporters the idea of blacklisting tourists who break the rule was being considered, but for how long depended on the “crime or infraction committed”, local newspaper Diario de Ibiza reported. None of the plans have yet been confirmed or fully scrutinised by lawyers, it was reported.
Any attempts by the Balearic Islands’ government to blacklist anti-social tourists is set to come up against EU free movement legislation, in cases in which the holidaymakers are from EU member states.
Earlier this month Calvia’s new mayor Juan Antonio Amengual admitted that laws which banned certain activities in certain parts of the Balearics but not others had not worked as hoped. “What you find at the moment is that one side of the street you have the tough rules and on the other side you don’t. We want it all to be the same,” he said.
