Nearly 19 million British nationals visited Spain in 2018 and most visits were ‘trouble-free’, according to the UK government travel advisory to Spain. However, popular Spanish resort towns and islands will be banning a group of rowdy Britons who have been blacklisted from certain hotels, bars and restaurants because of unruly behaviour in the past.
According to the Daily Mail, the city of Benidorm on Sain’s Costa Blanco is taking action after those in the hotel industry have had enough of drunken Britons who were ‘upsetting their staff and guests and causing costly damage’.
The Balearic island of Majorca and the resorts of Magaluf and Palma Nova on the mainland are already applying these sorts of controls and like Benidorm have lists which carry the names, nationalities and passport numbers of tourists who have caused trouble in the past.
In one incident reported by the Guardian, a 34-year-old homeless Polish man living in Benidorm who was allegedly paid €100 (R1,655) by a British stag group ‘to have the groom’s name tattooed on his forehead has said he accepted the offer out of desperation.’
Benidorm, Spain. Image credit: Maximilian Pazak
In addition to drunken sprees, Spanish media reported the tiresome ‘false’ complaints originating from British customers.
The president of hotel management of Benidorm, Toni Mayor, mentioned an 81-year-old woman who complained to her tour operator that there were ‘too many Spaniards’ at her hotel.
While South Africans are not particularly known for bad manners abroad, this serves as a warning to travellers to be respectful of others when travelling and if you do enjoy your alcohol, don’t let it get the better of you – or you could risk facing a ban.
