Ibiza's boozy holiday era is facing a dramatic shake-up

The party holiday that made Ibiza famous is facing a dramatic shake-up as San Antonio turns away from its boozy image and towards families and more upmarket visitors. The famous West End is still packed with British-themed bars, from the Highlander Scottish bar serving fish and chips and Tennent’s to nearby O’Flaherty’s Irish bar, where Guinness is on the menu.

But behind the familiar holiday scene, the mood has changed sharply. Business groups in San Antonio have described the past summer as their “worst season ever”, with the Ibiza Nightlife Business Association declaring: “It has been an absolute disaster. Fewer people are arriving and the police presence is also dwindling.”

A British bar owner in San Antonio’s West End, who did not want to be named, blamed soaring costs. “I think over the past six years, Ibiza has become too expensive to get here and to stay here,” they said.

The resort’s transformation is also being driven by authorities determined to crack down on the worst excesses of drunken tourism. New restrictions on drink sales and tighter rules for party boats are taking effect, while hotels increasingly target families rather than young people looking for all-night partying.

San Antonio’s West End grew into a cosmopolitan destination during the 1970s, attracting holidaymakers from Britain and across Europe. By the 1980s, cheap package holidays had made it a magnet for young British tourists, while reports of bad behaviour helped cement its rowdy reputation.

Now that model is under pressure across Spain.

Magaluf in Mallorca has become one of the clearest examples of the transformation. Once infamous for its anything-goes reputation and nicknamed “Shagaluf”, the resort has imposed tougher controls on cheap drinking and public disorder.

Visitors can face fines of up to €500 (£430) for drinking in the street and €400 (£345) for rowdy behaviour. Shops are also banned from selling alcohol between 9.30pm and 8am.

Xavier Pascuet, a sustainable tourism consultant and former director of tourism in Calvià, said the shift began around a decade ago when hotel chains started repositioning the resort.

Meliá was particularly important, he said, with major hotel upgrades moving the area towards four-star accommodation. “We attempted to attract families and we actually did change the audience, reducing by almost 40 per cent the drinking tourism and replacing it with families,” Pascuet said.

Meliá

He added that alcohol and public-behaviour rules had helped transform the environment. But he argued the deeper change was economic, with Magaluf now much less dependent on cheap beds for 18 to 25-year-olds.

“Party tourism is only part of the offer rather than the identity,” he said.

Benidorm is following a similar path. The Costa Blanca resort has seen the number of four-star hotels climb from 14 in 2000 to 59 in 2025, according to Visit Benidorm.

The proportion of visitors saying pubs and clubs were their reason for visiting has also fallen. It stood at 13.7 per cent a decade ago but dropped to 9.8 per cent between January and August this year.

British venues such as The Bulldog and Yorkshire Pride remain on Playa Levante, but more UK visitors are also heading towards Playa Ponente for cycling and walking.

Barcelona is pushing the same message on a much larger scale. The city attracted more than 15 million visitors last year and authorities are seeking what they describe as “quality tourism”.

Mateu Hernández, director general of Barcelona Turisme, said tourists could not simply arrive to get drunk in the streets, vomit, disturb neighbours, fight or engage in illegal activities.

“This is not a question of price. It’s a question of what are you coming to do?” he said, adding that quality tourism should be judged by what visitors want to do rather than how much they are prepared to pay.

There is another force reshaping Spain’s holiday industry: Generation Z. Young people aged roughly 15 to 29 are drinking less and increasingly looking for holidays built around experiences and exploration rather than spending their nights inside bars.

Elizabeth Keegan, the British director of the tourism board in Lloret de Mar, said post-pandemic behaviour among young holidaymakers had changed. She pointed to awareness campaigns, hotel investment and a growing appetite for healthy lifestyles and trendy, Instagram-friendly destinations.

“There is a different relationship towards alcohol,” she said.

José Manuel de Juan, director of the Spanish Tourist Office UK, said the shift towards experiential holidays rather than party tourism was “music to Spain’s ears”. He said Spain’s tourism strategy was focused on “quality over quantity”, with holidays designed to enrich visitors while bringing lasting benefits to the communities they visit.

For Ibiza, the transformation could mark the end of an era. The island’s famous party resorts are not disappearing overnight, but rising prices, tougher rules, changing hotels and younger tourists drinking less are all pushing the traditional booze-fuelled model in a very different direction.

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