Is the party over for Ibiza's non-stop hedonism?

By ELIZABETH NASH

MADRID - At his home in Ibiza yesterday, the Minister for Tourism, Jose Maria Rivas, was relaxing after a trip to London that could change the holiday and clubbing habits of tens of thousands of British youngsters.

Ibiza, says Mr Rivas, must change. It no longer wants the excesses of Britain's rave culture or its ravers, who sleep all day and dance all night. It wants sightseers who will enjoy the island's heritage, look at churches, and even go birdwatching.

So, while at a tourism trade show in London last week, he also tried to convey this message to youth radio stations. Showing a curious perception of which newspapers ravers read, he also spent time talking to the Daily Mail.

Yesterday, he confirmed that the Ibizan authorities have embarked on a cautious and gradual rebranding of their island. They still want the British holidaymakers - "We just want them to behave themselves," Mr Rivas said. But with new regulations limiting decibel levels in the clubs and the number of revellers allowed to attend, there is no doubt that a "clean-up" is beginning.

"We must have no more discos," he said. "We must implement the laws we have, and upgrade existing hotels, rather than build new ones. We've reached saturation and we want to control things, but without breaking a certain economic equilibrium. We want to promote tourism of nature, culture and sport, not just young nightlife. We think certain aspects of young tourism are damaging the image of Ibiza."

He also criticised some tour operators who encouraged uncontrolled drunkenness by organising all-night pub crawls, which damaged the island's reputation. The perceptible cooling of the Ibizan authorities to the British clubbers could spell the end of British Ibiza, a summer season of clubbing, sex and drugs excesses.

In Britain, first reactions were mixed. Rory Keegan, the chairman of Chinawhite, a London club, said: "I agree with the Spanish Tourist Board. Some parts of the island, particularly San Antonio, are too rowdy." But sources at Rapture TV, a cable station which broadcasts live from Ibiza, said they expected the club scene to continue with little change.

On the island yesterday, some of the key people involved in the nightlife industry were concerned about alienating the young Brits, who will be holidaying there in force this summer, taking British DJs and club maestros such as Fatboy Slim with them.

Local authorities have agreed measures this summer to curb some of the anarchy - and accidents - experienced by young revellers in recent years. These include tightening up traffic restrictions on the motorway linking Ibiza town to San Antonio by imposing a 50kph speed limit, installing traffic lights, roundabouts and off-street bus parks.

"You have to be very careful about limiting people's freedom," warns Jose Pascual, organiser of the island's annual DJ Awards. "We've a very relaxed life here. These youngsters are looking for fun. They come roaring off the plane already drunk and shrieking, and run off to drink, get drugged, and have sex. They've read the sensationalist press and think Ibiza is a sinful place where they can realise all their fantasies."

Mr Pascual says there is agreement among tourism entrepreneurs that things must be cleaned up, and approves of measures taken after discussions between disco bosses and local politicians. "We must lift the quality of the world of the night. The island cannot take any more abuse," he said.

But, like Mr Rivas, Mr Pascual concedes that the room for manoeuvre is limited: "They're going to limit the distribution of flyers, regulate how parties are advertised and enforce limits on numbers. But if you start clamping down, you're talking police action; you're talking about repressing the very thing people have been encouraged to come out here and enjoy."

Nito Verdera, a San Antonio radio journalist, says he has been campaigning for years against excesses committed by discos and riotous Brits. "Yes, the authorities are trying to present another face of Ibiza, but I don't think it'll get very far because the place is full of hooligans and it's difficult to break a habit. The macro-discos cater for these people: they don't respect limits on numbers or noise."

A club with a limit of 600 may let in 2,000, Mr Verdera says. A new regulation limits noise to 65 decibels and obliges all clubs to install a noise-limiter. "But you can hear some of them from 2km away, all night. They sell too many beds to that clientele, so young families don't want to come," he said.

Mr Verdera doubts the new curbs will be sufficient. "The authorities don't want to confront big business. Very powerful people are making big money. I don't say they wouldn't like to eliminate the ruffians, but the practical measures are few."

Ibiza's evolution as the European mecca of nightclubbing can be traced to a small and isolated restaurant in the heart of the Balearic isle. When the owners of the Ku decided in 1978 to add a 125-capacity mini-disco to promote their eaterie, they could have had little idea they were creating the ultimate party venue. But it was here, alongside the mosaic-tiled swimming pool, that the singer Grace Jones danced naked in the rain, Freddie Mercury sang "Barcelona", and young trendies came to mix with transvestites and multi-millionaires.

Nearly a quarter of a century on, Ku is known as Privilege and is listed in The Guinness Book of Records as the world's biggest club, with 7,000 sq m of space and capacity for 10,000 people. The club's main room is planted with trees and a small aircraft hangs from the ceiling.

The party traditions of the island - which was a famed hippy hang-out in the Sixties - are well established, but the key moment in the explosion of Ibiza's night life was the birth of the Acid House scene in 1987.

A group of British clubbers who had gathered at Amnesia - a club which had developed alongside Ku as a fashionable alternative to regular resort discos - were so overwhelmed by the experience that they tried to recreate it in Britain.

For the past decade, the two scenes in Britain and Ibiza have had a reciprocal relationship, each feeding off the other. Amnesia is now a 5,000-capacity venue which plays host in the summer to the DJs of the Liverpool superclub Cream. Other huge British clubs, such as London's Ministry of Sound and Sheffield's Gatecrasher, also have summer residency arrangements with Ibizan clubs.

The scale of these operations has concerned not only the Spanish authorities, but the police in Britain. Gatecrasher and Cream have both been targeted with high-profile drugs raids involving hundreds of police officers in the past year.

In Ibiza, as the underground clique of the Eighties has grown to an overground mass of hundreds of thousands of clubbers, so problems have arrived with the undoubted boost to the island's economy.

Dance music's domination of British youth culture has blurred the distinction between the dancers in the clubs and the lager drinkers in the pubs.

Irrespective of the trendy Ibiza clubs, the island has long been a favourite for Brit package holidaymakers and resorts such as San Antonio have developed reputations for drunken rowdiness to rival the Union Jack shorts image of towns such as Magaluf in Majorca.

Three years ago, Britain's vice-consul on the island resigned over the "degenerate" behaviour of his young countrymen, highlighted in British television programmes such as Ibiza Uncovered, which have enhanced the island's reputation for hedonism.

- INDEPENDENT