Title: Risk and transgression on holiday: 'new experiences' and the pied piper of excessive consumption

Authors: Daniel Briggs; Sébastien Tutenges

Addresses: Universidad Europea, C/ Tajo s/n, Villaviciosa de Odón, Madrid 28670, Spain ' Centre for Alcohol and Drug Research, Aarhus University, Artillerivej 90, 2300 KBH S, Denmark

Abstract: When British youth spend holiday abroad, they tend to engage in increased consumption of alcohol, drugs, violence and unprotected sex - collectively known as 'risk' behaviours. While numerous epidemiological studies have documented the extent of these risk behaviours in places like the Balearic Islands, few have taken a phenomenological approach with the participants who go there - to find out how they experience and attribute meaning to their transgressions on holiday. Our research reports on this matter and is based on ethnographic data collected in 2009, 2010 and 2011. We argue that individual and group holiday ambitions for a 'blow out' are actively complemented by aggressive commercial forces, which seek to capitalise on consumer spending, thus assisting in the production of risk. We show how this works by reporting from the resort of San Antonio, Ibiza.

Keywords: risk behaviours; deviance; British youth; British young people; commercial forces; excessive consumption; ethnography; individual holidays; group holidays; binge drinking; alcohol; drugs; violence; unprotected sex; late modernity; night-time economy; Ibiza.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTA.2014.059854

International Journal of Tourism Anthropology, 2014 Vol.3 No.3, pp.275 - 298

Received: 17 May 2013
Accepted: 20 Nov 2013
Published online: 21 Jun 2014 *

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