As is so often the case, the issue exists before it is named. Overtourism can be traced back using Google Scholar to a paper on Integrated Coastal Zone Management where there is a conceptual echo of overfishing. But the experience predates the coining of the word. This week the Dorset Echo carried a story and images of the overcrowded Weymouth beach in the 1960s: “there’s not a patch of sand to be had and ‘a worst nightmare’ and ‘horrific’ is how some beachgoers remember it.”
In 2002, Faliraki on Rhodes provided a “cautionary tale about an island that let tourism get out of hand”. Promoted by UK outbound operators like Club 18-30, a little village with two streets, Bar Street and Club Street, became “the party place for thousands of tourists”. Faliraki had organised bar crawls by the tour operator reps, and the destination was marketed by the source market operators: “Go to Faliraki and do what you can’t do at home”.
Jonny Dymond reported for the BBC in 2002 that there were two worlds on the Greek island of Rhodes: one “a pretty upmarket holiday destination” and the other “Faliraki, colony of sorts, overwhelmingly British, overwhelmingly young, and, come the night quite literally staggeringly drunk.” There were also reports of sexual violence. 34 rapes were reported on the island of Rhodes in 2002.
In early July 2002, the BBC ran a more balanced story: “Mayhem myth in ‘debauched’ resort”. The storm of media interest and lurid headlines was blamed by many on “Club Reps, the ITV1 show that loosely followed Club 18-30 tourists to show the resort at its sex-driven worst. (…) Later on in the series, we learn that all reps – male and female – are expected to take part in a reps’ show which is seen as the highlight of the holiday for guests, where they have to dance naked on stage to a huge, baying crowd to the soundtrack of Liberty X.”
The Greek National Tourism Organisation reported 430,000 UK tourists visited Rhodes in 2002, 35% of them staying in Faliraki, that’s 150,000 tourists. You can listen to a 2004 BBC World Service Report, a podcast about what happened in Faliraki in 2003 and the consequences: “In the summer of 2003, Faliraki on Rhodes was promoted as party central but when the drinking descended into violence, it all went tragically wrong.”
In 2003, an 18-year-old was jailed for flashing her breasts, released when her mother arrived to pay the fine. A 20-year-old male “was arrested for dropping his trousers in the resort after a night out drinking”. He was “saved a year in a Greek jail after his family stumped up £2,000 to pay his fine and secure his release.” In August, five British holiday reps were arrested for their “alleged supervision of illegal pub crawls”. They kept their jobs with Club 18-30.
A 29-year-old British tourist was run over by a dustbin lorry around 22:00, whether or not it was a daring prank that went wrong was, and is, contested. A few days later, a 21-year-old British tourist stabbed a 17-year-old British tourist, resulting in his death and a charge of manslaughter. In July 2002, the BBC carried a story titled “Faliraki is under siege”. Young Britons were flocking to the Greek resort, sparking media reports of debaucheryb, a police crackdown and even a diplomatic row.” The picture contrasts the beauty of the village in the daytime with the night economy.
Tourism was revealed as the driver of the local economy – “there is nothing else to do”, but it changed the culture of the town, and following the media feeding frenzy and lurid stories across the print and broadcast media, tourist numbers dropped, businesses closed, the season shortened, and employment fell.
Lancashire police, with experience of similar issues in Blackpool, provided some advice and recommended early intervention by the police to clamp down on unacceptable behaviour and the building of a police station so that troublemakers could be detained. But the damage was done: tour operators pulled out in 2004, and tourist numbers fell dramatically in Faliraki.
In the World Service podcast Report, “The Party’s over for Faliraki”, broadcast in December 2004, we hear about the causes and the consequences. In May 2004 the BBC reported “Youth moves on as Falikari fades”. Companies were reported to be “repositioning Faliraki as a family destination – as it was before the UK youth swept in.” Club 18-30 put the “70% bookings slide for Faliraki primarily down to the ‘cyclical’ market.”
ABTA’s Sean Tipton said the changes reflected the way “resorts come in and out of fashion very quickly. There was a short-term car-crash mentality in Faliraki—people went out and hated it, saying it was much too much.” Even 18-year-olds who wanted to drink lots of shots had standards.
Likis Sarantis, who ran the family Sarantis restaurant in Faliraki, saw it differently. He felt Faliraki had made a mistake in becoming too English and he was glad young holidaymakers were looking elsewhere. “For me, all the (bar) owners here made a big mistake,” he said. “Before, Faliraki was Greek. When they started to come, everything started to change – it was more English than a Greek place.”
In the BCC article, the industry does now “own” the problem, rather hoping that the police would deal with the drunken holidaymakers. “We hope (the police) are around and I am sure the whole industry hopes they are around because it’s damaging for the industry as a whole,” said Club 18-30’s Mr Smithson.
Mayors and local authorities have to choose between allowing their place to be used by the tour operators and their tourists or intervene, to maintain control and to use tourism to benefit the community.
As Holiday Hypermarket makes clear Faliraki has recovered “Partygoers near and far make the trek out to Faliraki for its nightlife alone. The resort has two designated party strips, equipped with bars, pubs and clubs. Nightlife here has quieted slightly over the last 10 years when the Greek government began to crack down on the after-hours craziness, but the bars are still full and the atmosphere is still buzzing long into the morning.
The issues of holidaymaker behaviour away from home still exist and they existed before Faliraki. The Japan Times ran a story in March 1999 “Worse than Vikings, English stag parties descend on Dublin.. a fearsome danger threatens Dublin still. That menace today is the city’s expanding tourist trade – particularly in Dublin’s top tourist area, Temple Bar, where that scourge of pubs and night spots, the stag night (or bachelor party as it is known to some) has been banned.”
