Dolly Alderton is spending the weekend in Magaluf. She’s not here for the 2-for-1 fish bowls or the jamón, egg and chips with a side of shisha pipe – though she has been marvelling at the “I love cock” streetside tat (“There’s something about the plainness of its sentiment,” she says admiringly).
She’s here for FLEM, Festival Literatura Expandida a Magaluf, a literary festival that’s entering its third year. This year, Alderton is the top billing, followed by a talk with I’m a Fan author Sheena Patel, and countless other “In Conversations” with Spanish authors. Last year they hosted Caitlin Moran. As a result, for one weekend a year Magaluf’s typical English “jamón” population is suddenly watered down with a drip feed of trendy bookish types, turning the party town into a cultural hotspot.
“I was very surprised to be invited,” says Alderton, who is suffering from the London lurgy and well aware of the irony of fronting an event named “FLEM” while in such a state. “I had associations with Magaluf that it was where you go after you finish your A Levels for six days. But I love Mallorca and I have this wonderful Spanish readership, plus the people who were organising it seemed brilliant.”
Alderton recalls her own post A Level holiday, where she and a group of female friends jetted off to the Greek island of Kos for a week, only for Alderton to obtain medical-grade sunburn on the first day. “I came up like bubble wrap,” she remembers, “I went to the pharmacy, they couldn’t solve it. I went to the Emergency Room, and they said ‘Look, you’re going to have to put Greek yoghurt all over yourself.’”
Alderton returned to her hotel room and spent the next six days inside. “I was hallucinating and hysterical from heat stroke. This was supposed to be the week I lost my virginity. The big week that I came of age.” Instead, her girl group had to take shifts keeping her company in the room and reapplying her Greek yoghurt as needed.
But Kos has also had a facelift since Alderton’s messy girls’ holiday of 2006. Magaluf is merely the latest domino in a long line of reformed party destinations. You may have noticed some of your chicer friends suddenly frequenting places this summer that you’d typically file alongside the locales of Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents. Corfu, Malaga, Mykonos, Cancún. There’s a change in the air.
Reformed party destinations are now the “It” new place to go and chill, in or out of high season. It all has that post-ironic sense about it that’s become typical of Gen Z-endorsed trends. Just look to the lyrics of Charli xcx’s TikTok-beloved hit Everything is Romantic: “Bad tattoos on leather tanned skin … Jesus Christ on a plastic sign … Fall in love again and again … Winding roads, doing manual drive.”
It’s a trend that’s been noticed by luxury travel PR firms, who have been increasingly planting themselves in destinations that, just ten years ago, would never have called for their services. “The recent demure and mindful trends might have been a fleeting TikTok fad, but there is a generation, I would say in their late twenties to late thirties, that is attracted to the old-school, "Slim Aarons" glamour,” says Rosanna Campbell-Gray, director of ASA Luxury.
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“They want beautiful hotels and destinations, with the option to party – or even just dine – at the iconic beach clubs, rather than going there with it being the sole intent.
“Drinking habits are also a huge influence on this trend. Many of those, like me, who do still drink, are doing so with different objectives. We want to return from our holidays somewhat recharged.
“Some people in the industry are calling meaningful travel, and I wouldn’t go that far, travelling to Mykonos is still escapism, into a different era – chic experiences with a bit of an edge, a return to the Mykonos of 80s and 90s.”
And who better to front this rebrand than a British party girl turned cultural icon. “I’ve noticed it with Ibiza in particular,” agrees Alderton, “of course you can get on board with it because it’s this beautiful island, this place of stunning natural beauty, and very welcoming people who have been so tolerant of all of us for the past many years. Places can have a million different characters and lifespans.”
She compares it to her former stomping ground, Camden Town, which many have tipped as the next tat-heavy target for a renaissance. It might seem unlikely, but if 'Shagaluf' can successfully rebrand, there's hope for anywhere yet.
