Michael Bormann is the proprietor of the Deutsches Eck restaurant. It is on C. Miquel Pellisa in Playa de Palma, a street that is better known as Bierstrasse. He says that the "party spirit" this year is "very extreme". "After the pandemic, it is clear that you have to catch up. However, some German holidaymakers are misbehaving to excess. We are a restaurant, not a pub. It seems that many people cannot understand this."
He believes that the holidaymaker profile has changed. "In June there used to be a lot of couples or families with children. This year, football clubs, sports teams and young people wanting to party clearly predominate."
Playa de Palma is covered by the tourism of excesses law. It is also what Palma town hall classifies as a 'zone of special touristic intervention', meaning hefty fines for antisocial behaviour and specific police presence. Yet businesses say that the excesses are worse than ever.
Beatrice Ciccardini, proprietor of the Zur Krone restaurant, reckons that "it's never been as bad as this year" and summer hasn't even started. She says that "there is no end to the drinking; some are still drunk on the streets at nine in the morning".
There are plenty of tourists, but restaurants aren't necessarily feeling the benefits. Juan Miguel Ferrer of Palma Beach, the initiative to promote quality businesses in Playa de Palma, says that this is partly due to higher prices. "Holidaymakers are stocking up on food from the supermarket or are eating at fast-food establishments."
While there are businesspeople arguing that things are worse than ever this season, Ferrer was saying much the same last October. "It has possibly been one of the worst years in terms of drunken tourism, leaving a lamentable image. The abandonment by Palma town hall has been total."
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Andy WalkerForeigners are always a problem... they're all poor and live like animals. Never have any money, eat cheap foreign food, crowd into strips where there's lots of cheap bars, get drunk and start fights, shag, puke and jump from balconies... It's disgusting. Worse yet, they blame it all on the upper class (e.g., Brits). I reckon that's why they dominate the "rest of the island", where you can't find a decent 3* all-in, no discount liquor shops, no nightclubs, no decent restaurants like burger king, or a place to buy "kiss me quick" hats and t-shirts. They couldn't afford that class anyway. Good job we left that mess.
tranq tranquerNope, can't guess, what's the answer. :-)
The worst people I see (having lived here years) are the Spanish, they do their Bottellon thing in their hundreds, get drunk and litter the place. They have no money so don't add value to restaurants and bars. They just buy supermarket beer and make their own food. Makes me laugh when the Spanish blame the Germans and Brits for everything, they need to stop naval gazing.
Holidaymaker profile is said to have changed Well thats certainly true. From at least the early 70's to the mid 80's the streets of Arenal were full of drunken Brits. And when I say full, at 3am in the morning cars could not get through the crowds on some roads. Drunken Brits. Drunken Germans. Anyone want to hazard a guess which nationality it will be in 20 or 30 years time.