By: Lia Contesso
Submitted: 2011-08-17 08:45:10 | Word Count: 563
This summer has been one to forget for the authorities and inhabitants of Lloret de Mar, a town in the Catalan coast of Spain. Destination of millions of tourists every year, this place that was once a quiet naval town has become during the last few years a source of many troubles, all of them related to alcohol, public disturbance, drugs and fights.
The Italian municipalities of the Adriatic coast, many of whom receive a great amount of visitors every year like Rimini, should try to avoid adopting the touristic models that have brought Lloret to the chaos of this summer. Police shooting rubber balls at 3 and 4 a.m. to hold groups of more than 300 intoxicated tourists is certainly not a desirable scenario.
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Hoteliers from Lloret de Mar, with the acceptance of local authorities have been offering for many years a series of low cost packages dedicated to youngsters that add to the model of Sea-Sun-Sea another S, Sex. Girls and boys from 16 to 30 years old from France, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom star in episodes that are easily confused with films based on the nightlife of American college. Loud music until 6 a.m. is a habit, parties on the beach, alcoholic beverages that are not sold individually but by litres (one litre for 6 Euros) and drugs, many recreational drugs that go from hand to hand and whose components no one knows. It is easy to see why Italian authorities have to be careful of the kind of tourism they intend to attract to their beaches and consider the consequences of a model that has small costs and significant revenue in the short term but that in the long term destroys the reputation, the natural and cultural heritage and all commercial activities of the area.
The local population says that young tourists "come here to do what they do not dare do in their countries". The advertising that travel agencies and hotels provide to these young visitors does not certainly encourage anything else: "Lloret de Mar, perfect for an alcohol filled holiday" or the even more explicit "Holidays banned to the old in Lloret de Mar: Alcohol, Sex and Fun!". Lloret de Mar has actually become a low-quality Ibiza, a meeting point for groups of young people that focus exclusively on drinking from the second they touch Catalan land. Such a state results in dangerous behaviour both for themselves and the people around them, even if the tourists over thirty years old are rarely seen in town, such has become the fame of Lloret de Mar.
Other coast towns in the Costa Brava area, where Lloret de Mar is located, have chosen to instead attract a tourism of a higher educational and economic level, opening the doors to, for example, the Russian market. The initiative has been positive so far in terms of profitability, since this type of visitors spend more, are more polite and appreciate and respect the beaches and the historical heritage. Such strategy is one to consider for many Italian coast towns that need to avoid, at all costs, becoming the Italian Lloret de Mar.
