Greek resort bans boozy British youngsters (and can we really blame it?)

Debauched young Britons are being banned from a Greek island resort because they are destroying its image.

Hoteliers in Malia, Crete, are lobbying for a law to stop block bookings of boozy holidaymakers.

They have already withdrawn bookings for 10,000 British holidaymakers.

Town hall officials are also applying for a court injunction stopping tour operators offering holidays with organised pub crawls and allday partying.

Officials say they have already discussed problems in the resort with British consular representatives and operators.

Bad behaviour by scantily-clad revellers on the town’s mile-long strip of more than 80 bars and clubs has made Malia notorious.

Locals say Britons, who make up most of the revellers, are behaving ‘like animals’, fighting, urinating and being sick in the streets, and having sex in public places.

They are fuelled by cheap alcohol, including fish- bowl sized cocktails. One clinic reported prescribing the morning after pill to Happy hour: The Inbetweeners 100 women a day in peak season. Malia was the setting for The Inbetweeners Movie in 2011 in which group of misfit schoolfriends went on their first boozy holiday abroad. It triggered a 243 per cent rise in hotel searches for the resort compared with the year before.

In reality, much of the film was shot in Majorca, including the equally infamous resort of Magaluf. But Malia now wants to attract more families and tourists from other countries.

A source in Crete said: ‘ This injunction would be primarily targeted at the tour operators – you can’t say to all the British people ‘‘get up and leave’’.

‘But officials want some boundaries, some lines to be drawn on the type of holidays that are offered.

‘At the moment, the tour operators offer packages where 200 to 300 young people at a time are put up in hotels with all-day partying.

‘They spend the day drinking, then the holiday rep comes up with a whistle and a flag and escorts them into town where they go on these organised bar crawls visiting up to 17 venues. The holithing daymakers are out of their minds before they even set off. The local authority has already called the British consulate. The ambassador has flown in to try to broker some kind of solution.

‘The locals, the hoteliers, they want tourism but they don’t want the problems that go with it.’

efthymios Moutrakis, Malia’s deputy mayor, said: ‘We’ve given these tour operators a free hand in branding an image completely alien to what Malia really is. Malia isn’t about sex, drugs and everydecline, goes. It’s the prime tourist destination in Crete, bringing in millions of euros to the island.’

One resort hotelier said the bad behaviour is driving away quieter tourists and warned party organisers to stay away.

He said: ‘Just the other day I had a group of German visitors who cut short their stay here because they couldn’t sleep and they didn’t feel safe.’

Malia has repeatedly hit the headlines over the past decade.

It is the latest in a long line of resorts to suffer from the problem of hedonistic British holidaymakers. Faliraki in Rhodes, Ayia Napa in Cyprus, Magaluf in Majorca, and the Ibiza destination of San Antonio have all taken action to crack down on loutish behaviour.

In Faliraki, Greek police declared a zero tolerance policy on drug and alcohol offences in 2004.

ABTA, which represents British tour operators, said: ‘The British market has a strong relationship with Greece.

‘Anti-social behaviour needs to be addressed in partnership with the authorities to ensure local communities can enjoy the benefits of tourism without negative consequences.’ r.marsden@dailymail.co.uk

‘People don’t feel safe’