A beachfront restaurant serving a € 30 burger alongside a € 13 drink can, a boutique sunbed for € 500 and a VIP club table that can reach thousands – this is one of the most popular luxury holiday destinations.
Restaurants, clubs, rental services and taxis – all have raised prices considerably this year. “It’s an island, it’s a seasonal vacation, and businesses are complementing on two years of revenue loss, along with supply chain problems and huge demand,” Ben Pondola, a luxury hotel consultant and veteran visitor to Ibiza, explains to CNBC.
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Indeed, the number of tourists visiting the Balearic Islands rose by 300% year-on-year in May, according to the Spanish National Institute of Statistics.
Prestigious destination
In the past, in the 1960s, Ibiza was a place that attracted young travelers, until in the 1980s the British-Australian Tony Pike put the island on the map when he opened the Pike Hotel, now known as the Pike Ibiza. The hotel has turned a 500-year-old mansion located in the hills of the island into a party haven. Pike’s wealthy and famous friends, such as Freddie Mercury, George Michael and Kylie Minogue, stayed at the hotel – which to this day attracts crowds to its rooms, restaurant and dance floor. Then also began the rise of party clubs, which over the years have become renowned, and today charge there 13 euros for a can of cola.
“Ibiza’s reputation as a luxury destination has evolved over several decades,” Caroline Edison, head of product at luxury travel agency Black Tomato, told CNBC. “It has this kind of established glamor, so there are those who sell expensively. When the audience of the past may have matured, become rich, established – it has defined the island in a new way.”