Sun, sex and sangria – and a world heritage listing?
The Pyramids of Giza, the Taj Mahal and the Great Wall of China may soon be joined on the list of world heritage sites by a representative of a very different culture: the concrete towers of Benidorm.
The Spanish resort city’s council plans to submit a bid to Unesco next year, and has commissioned a study by the University of Alicante to support its case.
It will not be easy. The city on the Costa Blanca is best known as a cheap destination which lures Britons with sun, sex and sangria. Unesco confers world heritage status only if a place is deemed to be a ‘‘masterpiece of human creative genius’’ or represents ‘‘an important interchange of human values’’.
A city may also qualify if it bears a ‘‘unique testimony’’ to a cultural tradition or a civilisation. A building or landscape which is ‘‘an outstanding example of a significant stage in human history’’ may also make the list.
Benidorm offers five kilometres of golden beaches and a culture that in part reflects the interests of its British visitors. The resort has an English Zone, with at least 10 fish and chip shops and more than 70 pubs, with names like the Yorkshire Pride and Piccadilly Corner.
Next week Benidorm will feature in the London Art Bienniale with works by the Spanish artist Oscar Tusquets. It is also the setting for a popular British sitcom of the same name.
In the architectural stakes, Benidorm has the third-tallest skyline in Europe, after London and Milan, because it has built upwards to meet tourist demand.
Antonio Perez, the mayor of Benidorm, has shrugged off suggestions that the city may lack something when compared to Easter Island, the Grand Canyon or Stonehenge, some of the 1052 sites already accepted by Unesco.
‘‘We are unique, both in terms of our natural beauty and our manmade model of a sustainable city. We have beautiful beaches and a vertical city which is very sustainable,’’ he said. ‘‘Benidorm has expanded upwards, unlike many other cities, and we have not built on our bay or the islands nearby.’’
He said Benidorm’s role as the place where mass tourism took off in the 1960s gave it historical importance.
Pedro Zaragoza, Benidorm’s mayor from 1950 to 1967, transformed a fishing village into a package holiday paradise. He saw that letting northern European tourists bask in the sun in bikinis would change Benidorm’s fortunes for ever.
Facing opposition from the Catholic Church, which opposed displays of naked flesh on beaches, Zaragoza rode to Madrid on his moped to appeal to Spain’s ruler at the time, the fascist dictator General Francisco Franco, who saw the potential for earning foreign currency and set off the tourism boom.