Tour firms cash in on `yob culture'
In the week Britain 's
vice-consul in Ibiza
resigned in protest, Jeremy Atiyah reveals how holiday companies exploit the
very behaviour he condemned
LEADING TOUR operators are offering
tailor-made sunshine trips to young clubgoers, promoting the sort of non- stop
partying that prompted the resignation last week of the British vice-consul in Ibiza ,
in protest at ravers' "degenerate" behaviour.
Airtours and Thomson Holidays have
issued their "youth" brochures for next year's summer season,
covering a wide range of resorts from Spain to
Turkey . Ibiza ,
the ravers' favourite destination, takes pride of place.
The wild antics and drug-fuelled club
culture of Ibiza
have become notorious in recent years. Michael Birkett, the British
representative there, quit his job in protest at the "degrading"
conduct he encountered. His criticism of young Britons abroad was echoed in the
Spanish press.
Prospective holidaymakers would be
unlikely to confuse Airtours' brochure, Escapades, with a "mum dad and the
kids" package - at first glance it seems to be a ravers' style bible. From
the psychedelic whirl of colour on the front cover to the innuendo-studded
headlines within - "take a power-trip", "chill-out zone",
"fill up with funk" - this brochure speaks the language of the drug
and rave culture.
It also speaks the language of
drunkenness. Virtually every page depicts young revellers holding beer glasses
up to the camera or guzzling jugs of sangria. "We know you want to fly
together, pour beer over each other, and borrow each other's clothes ... that's
the beer money sorted then," quips the text, by way of explaining the
group-discount terms.
Thomson's Club Freestyle brochure is
more cautious in this respect; it also contains an explicit advisory at the
back, warning against the use of drugs. However, these "budget,
youth-oriented" packages are an increasingly mainstream part of the summer
holiday market.
Developing out of a small subsection of
the family-oriented Skytours brochure, Club Freestyle has grown, in the space
of the past two years, into a mainstay of the Thomson brochure series.
Both the Thomson and Airtours brochures
are brutally up-front about who their target audience should be. "No
screaming kids, no feuding families and no knotted hankies," declares
Thomson. "It's payback time," screams Airtours, which, a few lines
later, suggests that readers might care to "join in one of our notorious
drinking competitions".
Asked if such material encouraged bad
behaviour, a Thomson spokeswoman said: "We attract students, groups of
friends and people looking for basic but affordable accommodation. People are
not required to be naughty, but they are entitled to a good time in the way
they would be at home."
Both brochures have small-print
sections at the back stating the companies can terminate holidays if clients
behave badly. There are also general warnings about the dangers of unprotected
sex.
On the other hand, to judge by the
pictures, punters returning from a Club Freestyle or Escapades holiday without
having had sex with a stranger might have legal grounds to demand their money
back. From the lads baring their bums to the school-age girls sticking their
tongues out at the camera, there is plenty here to curdle the blood of British
vice-consuls across the Med.
Not that the accommodation on offer
looks particularly promising for one-to-one encounters. The cheapest deals -
both operators offer a week's holiday, including flights and self-catering
accommodation, for only pounds 99 - are based on four people sharing a
one-bedroom apartment.
But there would appear to be little
excuse for any easily shocked types who might book these holidays by mistake.
"Our agents take great care to
ensure that Club Freestyle customers do not end up in the same hotels as our
family customers," said the Thomson spokeswoman. "As far as possible,
they are even kept in separate resorts. On Ibiza ,
for example, the partygoers stay in San
Antonio , while more sedate types
are put in resorts like Santa Eulalia."
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