Boozy British student 'Saloufest' package tours scrapped for 'lowering the tone'
Monday, October 10, 2016 @ 10:23 PM
A FAMOUS student festival on the Costa Daurada which attracts revellers from over 100 British universities every Easter will cease – ostensibly because of insufficient public service capacity, but thought to be more likely to be because 'drunken tourism' is becoming increasingly frowned upon in Spain.
The Saloufest, based in the seaside town of the same name – Salou, in the province of Tarragona – has been running for 16 years non-stop and has brought in around 100,000 visitors and €5 million in that time, says tour operator ILoveTour.
“Pressure from Salou town council and the regional government of Catalunya in the last few years has made it practically impossible to carry on offering packages for youth tourism in the area,” the travel company reveals.
A number of British students have already booked for next year, so up to 10,000 of them will be offered a place at the Sportsfest in Lloret de Mar (Girona province) through the firm Outgoing Ltd instead.
ILoveTour says it has been negotiating with Lloret to try to convince it to become the new venue for the Saloufest, but without success.
“The high number of students in the town all at once would be too much for public services in Lloret to cope with, and would lead to a great deal of media pressure,” the tour operator reveals.
It says as well as Salou's own media pressure, the companies – bars and hotels – which work with them to run the sports and leisure festival have been subject to 'a worrying number of inspections' by authorities purely because they are involved in the Saloufest.
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