Spain’s popular party resorts Palmanova and Magaluf in Mallorca aiming for safe holiday season free of drunken tourists behaving badly

UPMARKET: The resorts have pursued a different kind of tourism in recent years
CREDIT: Asociación de hoteleros Palmanova Magaluf Twitter @ashopama

PALMANOVA and Magaluf are aiming for a safe summer season free of the booze-fuelled excesses which have given the popular resorts a certain notoriety for drunken tourists behaving badly, especially Brits.

The Palmanova-Magaluf Hotelier Association has underlined what it says has been the “important investment” in establishments in recent years, backed up by the administrations’ emphasis on public safety. The association points out this was rounded off by the recent Balearic government decree to “shape the zone as safe and free of tourism excesses”, which it maintains have meant incidents of extreme behaviour are few and far between.

It said law enforcement and associations for sectors including hotels, night-life, traders and taxis, “have worked together to prepare for the season and to collaborate between us so that the decree to control excesses is complied with and Magaluf continues to become established as a safe and quiet destination which thousands of families visit on their holidays every year.”

And as the whole of Mallorca’s tourism sector gets ready to receive visitors under the circumstances of the Covid-19 reality, the hoteliers’ association has joined forces with Calvia council to reassure international tourist markets that strict compliance with regulations to protect customer and staff health are the top priority in all establishments opening their doors in the resorts this summer.

This means the implementation of new processes and standards of service and product to guarantee health safety.


The association statement further says that because Magaluf and Palmanova have for the last eight years pursued a more upmarket model of tourism, today nearly three-quarters of its hotel places are classified as four-star or above, putting them “above the quality average for Spanish destinations.”

The statement also said that 88 per cent of its hotels will have undergone upgrades by the time they open this season.


It terms of market, the hoteliers maintain that family tourism accounts for more than 70 per cent of their customers and that there is an emerging business and conference section.

A further point highlighted in the statement is that it says is success of efforts to move towards a more sustainable kind of tourism, with “greater diversification in business sources and nationalities, direct channels and online intermediaries overtaking the traditional tour-operation or ‘packet’, which remain co-existing with new models.”