Tenerife is being tipped to rival notorious party destinations Magaluf and Ayia Napa in the coming years by a bar manager on the popular Playa de las Americas strip.
Max Fernandez, 26, who has worked at Joyce Bar for over a year, is confident momentum is building to make the party spot the go-to location for Brit tourists wanting a hedonistic holiday.
He said: “It’s coming up, I’m telling you. This strip is going to be up there with places like Magaluf and Ayia Napa.
“It’s got noticeably busier with party holidays. The Canaries are cheaper as well. My flight to come over cost £90 [and] it’s £2 a pint.
“It’s more expensive to fly to Ayia Napa because it already has the reputation, whereas this place doesn’t. You can come here and have exactly the same holiday for much less, and it’s sunny all year round.”
Max is confident massive protests from locals about the impact of overtourism won’t deter Brits from flocking to the Canary Islands, despite one tour operator claiming bookings to Tenerife had plummeted this year.
“I get what they are saying to an extent,” Max said of the demonstrators. “But at the same time, it creates jobs. It’s supply and demand. More clientele is going to [increase the] need for more staff.
“At the height of summer we get about 1,000 customers a night and we’re at the quieter end of the strip. Further up they get even more people. It’s been so busy people just have to enjoy their drinks out on the street. They can’t even get inside to dance.”
One of the main drivers of business Max said is stag and hen-dos. On the Express’s flight out to Tenerife alone there were four different pre-wedding parties with at least 10 members wearing matching T-shirts or hoodies.
Wander around the Playa de las Americas area of Southern Tenerife at nearly any time of the day and groups can be seen at various stages of drunkenness.
“At the peak times we get 15 to 20 stag and hen-dos a night, during quieter times it can be one or two,” said Max.
“They are good business in terms of money, but they’re also good in terms of creating a vibe. If you’ve got a bunch of lads coming in having a drink and keeping themselves to themselves that doesn’t do much.
“But if you walk past and you’ve got like massive geezers dressed up as Snow White and the Seven Dwarves on the dance floor giving it something you’ll be like ‘I’m going in there’.”
According to Max, who hails from Enfield in North London originally, most of the wedding parties hit the strip with no issue, but when there is trouble it is often the case hen-dos are wreaking more havoc than the stags.
“The lads have a drink and fellas can get a bit rowdy but I had a hen-do last week who started having an argument amongst themselves. One of the birds gets up and smacks the hen in the face.
“It turns out the girl that slapped her was the hen’s sister, so she’d ruined her [own sibling’s] hen.
“The thing with women is when it kicks off they’ll be like ‘don’t touch me like that’ and it opens up a whole can of worms. You’re just trying to separate them and stop the fight.”
Not that male party-goers are averse to extreme behaviour and Max has frequently been left open mouthed by their wild antics.
“I’ve seen it all,” he added with a smile. “From blokes shooting fireworks out their a*** to them drinking beer out of their mate’s bum.”
Currently, Max explained, Tenerife is at its most popular with British visitors and the difference to other times of the year is noticeable.
He added: “[In the springtime] we get the Brits. In August and September we get a lot of Spanish and Italian. In the winter months the Scandinavians.
“The easiest to handle are the Spanish and Italians because they don’t like to spend a lot of money. They’ll happily come into a bar, not drink and just have a good time so there’s no headache.
“The hardest are definitely the British; they go for it. I don’t know what it is about Brits but when we go somewhere we just feel as if we own it, it’s ours. But it’s not, there are people living there.
“It’s not good for the vibe. Imagine you’ve just arrived and you’re having a walk down the strip and you’re having geezers throwing beer at each other, p***ing against people’s cars and there’s rubbish everywhere. People don’t go on holiday for that.
“I don’t know why people come on holiday and feel like they can take the p***.”
