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

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.