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Salute the visionary - 2 April 2008

Posted by Paul Collins No comments


Bikinis allowed

The former mayor of a small Spanish fishing village has passed away at the ripe old age of 85, and anyone buying a property overseas – in fact anyone who has been on a package holiday – has good reason to raise a glass to him.

Pedro Zaragoza Orts was mayor of Benidorm from 1950 to 1967, and brought mass tourism to the region, paving the way for millions of British tourists to visit the country and subsequently buy property. He even risked his reputation and standing in the town by defying the Catholic Church to allow the wearing of bikinis in public, a move he saw as vital to attracting northern Europeans to the Costa Blanca.

Having had to get on a Vespa and drive to Madrid to convince Franco himself that going against the clergy would bring in the foreign currency that Spain desperately needed at the time, Zaragoza was rewarded with tourists flocking to the town. Going out on a limb proved to be one of the most inspired decisions in the history of tourism, and seeing the success of Benidorm in attracting foreign visitors, seaside towns around the country adopted the same principles in order to boost their income and develop their infrastructure.

This paved the way for mass tourism on a scale never seen before, and transformed Benidorm from a village of just 1,700 inhabitants into a throbbing city of 70,000 souls – with Brits forming the largest proportion of expat residents.

Some will argue that this is nothing to be celebrated, and that it symbolizes the destruction of a quiet fishing community in favour of chasing the consumer Euro, Pound and Dollar. For some people, the image of thousands of Brits slowly turning lobster-red on the beaches of the Costas is as far removed from buying an apartment in an eco-resort in the middle of South America as could be, but the links between the two are impossible not to recognize.

Without the development of affordable package holidays for the masses to be able to experience overseas travel, there may have never been a demand for low-cost airlines in the way there is now, and people would not feel so comfortable about moving between countries. After all, the people who travel freely around the world now are often the ones who had the chance to go on overseas holidays as children.

For that, Sr Zaragoza, we thank you.

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