15 May 2024 , 07:15
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Brit holidaymakers in Magaluf have been urged to “show responsibility” by the UK ambassador.
Hugh Elliott said our tourists had to remember they were guests during their time in the party resort. Speaking during a visit to Calvia, that includes Magaluf, to publicise the ‘Stick With Your Mates’ campaign for responsible alcohol consumption, he said: “Generally what we all want is responsibility.
“During holidays we all want to have a good time, don’t we, and young people above all. This is about understanding what responsibility is about, responsibility as guests because us foreigners are guests here in Spain and in Calvia, it's a question of knowing how to behave with responsibility and have a good time. The tourism here is a type of tourism that appreciates the destination."
Mr Elliott’s visit to Majorca came less than a week after regional government chiefs announced a tightening-up of restrictions designed to curb drunken tourism which include the forced night-time closure of shops selling alcohol and fines of up to £1,300 for people caught boozing in the street.
The ‘Stick With Your Mates’ campaign was launched in 2019 by the British Embassy in Madrid and the British Consulate in Palma with major help from the friend of a Scots bar worker who died six years ago in a Magaluf fall. Mr Elliott said the key to it was “having a good time but staying safe.”
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He said: “We have seen that in the great majority of cases when young people have had accidents, sometimes fatal accidents, it’s because they’ve been alone, hence the ‘Stick with Your Mates’ message because it’s a way in which holidaymakers can protect themselves and avoid problems.”
Mr Elliott met Calvia’s mayor Juan Antonio Amengual during his visit and after they held a meeting with some of the business owners’ associations that work in the area. The town hall said afterwards: “Last year ended in Magaluf without any deaths due to falls from hotels or apartments.
“The campaign that is now being resumed aims, in summary, to maintain this record among the thousands of young people who are already beginning to arrive in Magaluf.” Georgia Hague started her own ‘Don’t Leave a Friend Behind’ campaign after Natalie Cormack died in April 2018 at the notorious Eden Roc apartment block in Magaluf where two other Brits lost their lives.
The 19-year-old, from West Kilbride, Ayrshire, laid undiscovered for several hours after losing her balance as she tried to get into the flats and plunging the equivalent of seven floors as she edged her way along an overhang after discovering she was locked out.
Georgia, from Welwyn Garden City, Herts, also played a major part in a ‘Stick With Your Mates’ campaign to make young tourists aware of the importance of looking out for each other when it was launched. A video she featured in went viral and has been credited with helping prevent further deaths and accidents.
Business owners in Magaluf were reported this week as saying they were tired of some of the behaviour of drunken British tourists and wanted to see more families in the resort. The modifications announced last Friday to an existing 2020 regional government decree introduced to curb some of the worst tourist excesses have been marketed as part of a package of new measures designed to encourage ‘responsible tourism’ in the areas covered by the legislation, which include Magaluf’s infamous Punta Ballena strip.
Bans on street drinking and night-time bans on the sale of alcohol in shops were already in place there. Local media reporting on the ‘pioneering’ 2020 decree four years ago claimed at the time: “The party is over. The Balearic Islands government has approved these rules to put a stop to the excesses of alcohol abuse in tourist areas.”