AS WE SEE IT

A weekly column by three young journalists at the Sotogrande International School  - Annabel Moody, Rio Jones and Hannah Brown  - with their views on current affairs and news.

OUR YOUNG JOURNALISTS ARE NOW ON THEIR SUMMER BREAK AND WILL RETURN HERE IN SEPTEMBER.

Costa Del Sol - Lager Lout Heaven?

By Hannah Brown

The Costa del Sol has long been a favorite holiday destination for foreign holiday makers, but its reputation has been slightly tarnished along the way by the fact that it has seemed to be trying to appeal to the lower end of the holiday market.

The Costa del Sol is now very keen to shed its previous image as the playground of the permanently sun-burnt British lager lout and is trying its best to attract a more discerning clientele with more sophisticated tastes and recreational needs.

So are the images of beach promenades lined with bars and restaurants offering cheap lager, Sunday roast beef lunches, fish and chips and all day English breakfasts really a true representation of the culinary repertoire of the Costa del Sol?

I personally believe the sight of the “Roast Beef Lager Lout” is simply an image from the past. It is a throwback to the days when Spain was flooded with package deal holidaymakers for many of whom this was their first holiday on foreign soil.

In fact in the 1950s only 1% of British citizens had ever travelled abroad on holiday so the explosion of package holidays in the 1970’s not only exposed a lot of people to the sunshine but also to different foods and cultures that they found it very hard to adapt to. Typically Spanish food such as paella was something that the first time British tourists in Spain had never experienced and their food tastes were a lot more conservative than they are today.

These early working class pioneers of foreign holidays for the masses simply wanted to drink the same beer and eat exactly the same food as they did at home. Surely this is not a crime? There is no doubt that the money they spent greatly helped the ailing Spanish economy and arguably laid the foundations for the massive growth in tourism that made Spain the World’s second most visited tourist destination after the 1970’s.

I think what has happened is that the changing face and relative sophistication of the typical British holiday maker in Spanish is a result of 40 years of social change where ordinary people have been exposed to international travel and more varied cuisine. Many people now insist on trying local restaurants and regional dishes when holidaying in Spain to try and broaden their own knowledge of different foods as well as discovering different ways of preparing their own meals.

My parents are both British. They run a holiday rental business on the Costa del Sol and provide a lot of holiday accommodation for ordinary British Tourists. They themselves can remember their first Spanish holidays in the 1970’s and the changes that have taken place.

My father says, “In the seventies everything was organized for the British holiday maker on the Costas; local businessmen knew it was easier to sell the tourists what they wanted rather than to convert them to a Mediterranean lifestyle and cuisine in 14 days. We can all have a little snigger about how crass all of this may appear to the more cultured European travelers, but they have matured now and with cheap flights and the Internet, these same holidaymakers are now demanding more variety. The real challenge is for Spain to offer more diversity in the face of new markets both in Europe and farther afield.”