Hotel Furniture Broken, Mirrors Smashed, TVs Throw Out Windows in This Spanish Resort Due to Rowdy Brits

The hotels in the resort of Magaluf, on the Spanish island of Majorca, are headed for a record number of expulsions of guests. A local hotel association has revealed that so far this year, the hotels have collectively kicked out 107 total guests from their establishments.

Most of the culprits are from the United Kingdom: 92 are British; the other 15 were from Ireland.

This isn’t the first year that British holidaymakers have caused trouble. Last year, a record of 254 Brits were removed from or asked to leave Magaluf’s hotels. That number was up considerably from 147 in 2012 and 166 in 2011.

The resort is popular with young Brits, Irish, Russians, and Scandinavians who prefer vacation packages; peak season is during July and August. The atmosphere in Magaluf, however, is comparable with Spring Break in Cancun for American teens and twenty-somethings.

However, more than one-third of the area’s hotels do not belong to the local hotel association, which reported the numbers of expulsions. Therefore, the figure could be much higher, in reality.

Joan Espina, vice president of the Palmanova-Magaluf Hotel Association, explained the three main reasons that guests are asked to leave: “The first is guests damaging hotel furniture, kicking doors down, smashing mirrors and even throwing TVs out of their rooms. The others are fights with other guests and verbal and physical attacks on hotel staff.”

Espina explained that the vast majority of these guests are British men between the ages of 18 and 25.

“Virtually all the problems we’re experiencing are connected to the misuse of drugs and alcohols and obviously we’d urge these youngsters to take care,” said Espina.

Those who are asked to leave the hotels are put on a temporary blacklist as personae non gratae, so other hotels know not to let them in.

In addition to being bad for business, especially if local law enforcement has to get involved, the damage done to the hotel rooms is also incredibly costly.

“Where there’s been vandalism hoteliers try to get compensation from those who’ve caused it but it’s very difficult in practice,” Espina told reporters.

Many of the area’s hotels have also hired private security; police officers are only called in more extreme cases.