Five thousand University students have caused outrage during a massive bender in a Spanish seaside resort.
In Salou, where York University Rugby Union team are currently on tour, locals are outraged at the behaviour of the British visitors.
Although most of the students are there as part of ‘Saloufest’, which is billed as ‘the biggest student sports festival there is’ after only 24 hours of the event 9 students have already been treated by paramedics.
Furious locals say they have woken up with the streets filled with vomit and urine.
Resident Jaime Corbella said: “This is unprecedented, I’ve never seen such behaviour in my life.”
Local television stations have shown the students rampaging through the streets in their underwear, fancy dress, and exposing various parts of their bodies.
Maria Gomez, spokeswoman for a local residents’ association, said: “This morning the streets were full of vomit. This kind of drunken tourism is deplorable.”
The British national press have since reported the upset caused, but have been accused of sensationalizing the story.
Jaume Orteu, manager of the Playa Park hotel where 600 Brits are staying, said: “Of course it is drunken tourism, but they are good clients.”
Sam Seward, director of ilovetour, who organise ‘Saloufest’ said: ‘Whilst we appreciate that the students have come to Salou to play some serious sport and have fun, we place student safety as our number one priority and have taken very serious steps to promote responsible touring. ‘
‘There is a dedicated paramedic team on duty 24/7 during festival sports and at night in addition to a police liaison officer to ensure effective communication with local authorities.’
Great, just what we need when we will be fighting against higher tuition fees, lots of students getting pissed on holiday.
This is the kind of image that gives students such a bad image with the public.
Yeah, looking at the pictures on the Sun and Daily Mail website, it is pretty much Ziggy’s on sea.Embarrasing.
Oh tom and nick, I am an old boy and comments like yours personify York. “higher tuitions fees” I should hope so, it will keep people like you out of York
Well done to the most successful team on campus for having a bloody good time.
HUZZAH to the old guard.
P.S. if only York Vision really knew what happened !
TH, you must be a very old boy indeed.
With those sort of views you sound like a dinosaur.
Oh Nick, Tom and York Vision. What a piece of Sun/Daily Mail esq twaddle. I cannot believe you’ve lowered yourself into reporting on such a non-event. Have any of you actually been on tour? I don’t drink and still have been several times both as Student and Staff for another University and this year has been one of the best year’s ever, efficiently organised with a large array of sport to get involved with and a great time abroad. Just because a few people 9/5000 people took it too far you think it’s an outrage… maybe before you start critising this event you should look at the daily lives of students in York where you’ll see much more violence, drunken behaviour and general drunkeness than on tour.
You might be interested to know that the photos that appeared in the Sun and the Daily mail were mainly of one university, but they don’t tell you that, they also don’t tell you that the students in the photos who are shown as drunk louts are equally the highest praised in terms of responsibility and respect from both iLoveTour and the Hotel Playa Park. The same university also sends it’s own staff on Tour to ensure everything runs smoothly and the students are well looked after – do York do this?
Timmy you n00b. The tone is spot on, these people need to start behaving like responsible adults.
Read my comment properly. It doesn’t say the Tone is wrong. Infact it’s one of the better written articles on the matter. I just happen to agree with the Salou Town Council that this is all worthless media hype and I’d have thought an award winning media team such as York would have the sense to create articles that are more than something created by the national media because it’s a slow news week. It’s just sensationalizing something that quite probably happens on a weekly basis in your city… the same as every city across the UK. Maybe a real story would be looking at the amount of your students on a weekly basis end up in A&E due to alcohol poisoning?
Oh and ‘n00b’ – really. Why not make an informed comment mate? I can only apologise if you’ve aged before your time – how is the comb over going? Chin up.
Although I agree that the stories in the national media have been a little excessive in their condemnation, I don’t think it is all media hype, as Vision report, residents of the town are upset about the behaviour of the students. Even if the council and the hotel some of the students stayed in, which both stand to gain financially from the students, then it is still a valid story.
I also agree that there doesn’t seem that much different between what happened there and what happens in most city centres on a weekly basis, but I think the problem is the scale of the event. 5000 extra people in a town, in addition to the usual population of tourists is going to put a strain on the resources and patience of residents.
Does this article offer anything at all that the national newspapers havn’t already covered extensively? is there any original or incitement comment? any interviews with people who were there from the rugby club?
Or have you directly plagiarised a daily mail article in yet another attempt from YorkVision to sling some mud at the universities highest achieving club?
Actually Id say YUSNOW who bring home podium finishes and BUCS points from every event they go to would be the university’s higesht achieving club
@Tom
‘Does this article offer anything at all that the national newspapers havn’t already covered extensively?’
Yes, it mentions that a specific York team was there, which isn’t mentioned in any of the other stories.
Oh and its university’s.
Thanks “Yellow Belly”…nice to see someone recognising
our success which does seem to get overlooked by r
the major teams at Uni!
Don’t believe everything you read. I’ve just got back from Saloufest and it was one of the best week’s of my life. I am not an irresponsible student by far and if you believe that only 60 cases of alcohol poisoning out of 8000 student is bad then why don’t you go to your nearest higher educational establishment and weigh up the ratios there? The only thing that these papers and the spanish local don’t seem to be mentioning is the £1,000,000 that has been spent over the last 2 weeks. In the current economical climate I really don’t believe that Saloufest will be cancelled do you?
As for the compromising photographs, all it takes is one movement to be caught on camera for a misleading story to come out about it.