Brits have gained a reputation as being loud and boozy in recent decades, and it seems that Spanish holiday destinations have had enough of our antics.
Lanzarote's tourist chiefs seem to be in the process of ending a long relationship with sun-seeking visitors from the UK, who have been drawn to the island's sea, sand and cheep booze for decades.
The leader of Lanzarote has said the Canary Island is now looking for a “higher-quality” of visitor, looking to other big markets for the destinations, such as German tourists, reports the Times.
The island has declared itself a “tourist-saturated area” and has decided to go for quality over quantity in a bid to cut the number of visitors.
Its new strategy aims to “reduce dependence on the British market”, despite the loyalty of such a group when it comes to filling the sunbeds and eating the fry-ups laid out by hospitality workers there each summer.
María Dolores Corujo, the Socialist party head of Lanzarote’s local government, told a tourism trade fair in Berlin: “It’s essential to work on the diversification of the [tourism] sector and the growth of markets like the German market . . . and [drawing] holidaymakers who spend more when they’re here and [moving] us away from mass tourism.”
Part of the new strategy will be to become less dependent on Brits who currently account for more than half of holiday numbers.
It is not the only part of Spain which is making moves to change the way its tourism industry operates.
Tourism leaders in Mallorca have also decided to go for a 'quality over quantity' approach, this week sealing a pact to allow no more than three cruise ships arriving per day in 2023 and 2024 to the island's capital of Palma.
Director of tourism for Mallorca, Lucia Escribano, said officials on the island were "are not interested in having budget tourists from the UK".
The government of the Balearic Islands in general has announced they will have an "absolute ceiling" when it comes to tourist numbers in the future.
In 2022 16,475,579 holidaymakers arrived on the islands, which will be the maximum in the future.
A limit on the number of drinks all-inclusive holidaymakers can enjoy a day was capped at six in the Balearics last summer.
Lanzarote's announcement that it will try and attract more Germans, and less Brits, will be a blow for the latter group.
Over the past few decades tourists from the two countries flock to the Canary and Balearic islands.
In reality, the Brits have long been the biggest single bloc on the Canary Islands - a truth born out by the hundreds of thousands of UK tourists who visit Lanzarote alone each year, and the dozens and dozens of specialists shops set up to cater for them.
Whether the island can ween itself off this steady supply of tourism income over the coming years remains a live question.
