"If there are no boats, there are no people": inside an ‘uneven’ season at luxury showcase Marina Ibiza

Yachts moored side by side, handbags that cost as much as a flat and waiters everywhere. This is Marina Ibiza every summer: one of the island’s most expensive showcases, where Loewe, Dior and Bulgari sit alongside packed restaurants and nights that begin long before sunset. Its streets are filled with visitors looking for the perfect photograph with the perfect view. But among staff and managers this season, one word keeps coming up: “uneven”.

For Toni Tur, an Ibiza student working in hospitality over the summer, two seasons at Cappuccino, one of the marina’s most recognisable restaurants, have been enough to notice that things are changing. “Compared with last year, this season has definitely been quieter, particularly during the World Cup”.

He says business picked up afterwards, but has slowed again as August enters its final stretch. His colleague Lucía Galán agrees that the pace has dropped, although not dramatically, and points to something that carries more weight here than almost any statistic: the expected arrival at the end of the month of a royal family from an Arab country.

“You notice when they arrive. They are regular customers who come back every day and spend a lot”, she says. “This year, the clientele is mainly wealthy families, many of them Arab or Neapolitan”, Toni agrees.

Cristina, an Italian manager at Loewe, has spent every summer on the island for the past four seasons and is somewhat disillusioned by the direction Ibiza is taking.

“It has changed completely. It used to be a quieter place. Those of us who come here for the season, as well as residents, look for somewhere peaceful, but the island is completely saturated. The beaches are packed; there is not a single corner without people”.

She also blames prices. “They are crazy. You cannot get a bottle of water for less than five euros in any restaurant. A bottle of water!”.

She says the change has been less noticeable in the type of customer visiting the marina. “The clientele here is still very international. We mainly get European tourists, including lots of Dutch people who have second homes in Ibiza. Arab or Indian customers, on the other hand, tend to visit brands such as Dior or Louis Vuitton more often”.

Her observation appears accurate. Shortly after 12.30pm, under intense midday heat, most of the marina’s shops are empty, while the crowds are concentrated at the waterfront restaurants, where late diners are finishing breakfast. Almost every shop is empty — except Louis Vuitton.

Families increasingly absent

Cristina believes rising prices explain the decline in traditional family tourism. “It has fallen slightly, which is understandable. The island is more expensive, everything has gone up: hotels, restaurants. This year we have had loads of stag parties, or people who come for just one day and use it as a chance to go clubbing”.

At Calma, which shares Cappuccino’s panoramic view of Dalt Vila, manager Claudia Mocanu has noticed the same shift, although she interprets it differently.

“You do not see those families with children any more. The people coming now are on a different level”. However, she says the restaurant has not experienced less business. “That customer has been replaced by another kind, someone who arrives by boat or is looking for nightlife”.

July and August have been strong. “There have been days when we simply could not cope”, she says, although June was noticeably quieter. “It was a strange month compared with what we are used to”.

Claudia describes two completely different rhythms across the season. “July and August are another pace altogether. People spend quickly and want their table immediately. September is slower, with customers who are in no hurry and have a different level of spending power”.

Boats, she insists, are crucial. “Everyone arriving on them has a lot of money, and they spend it in the marina’s restaurants”.

‘The people who come are not spending less’

Lucía Fernández, from Filin bar — positioned at the heart of the marina and surrounded by major fashion houses — does not mince her words. “Yesterday this place was absolutely packed. We did not even have time to drink water”.

Even so, like many others, she describes August as “quieter than usual”. She complains that some customers this month have been “very rude”. What concerns her most, however, is the shortage of staff, a problem that resurfaces every summer.

Her colleague Milene Rodríguez, who is from Ibiza and is working in the area for the first time this season, says she has been surprised by the level of spending. “I do see fewer people on the island, but the ones who come are not spending less. Some do not even look at the bill, or leave tips worth more than what they have ordered”.

The most conspicuous form of luxury is reflected in jewellery. Anyone walking into Bulgari and leaving with a purchase is unlikely to struggle with the bill. Inside the shop, staff describe the season as stable, “more or less in line” with previous years.

They also point out that the marina’s luxury bubble empties when it rains. “All the tourists head into Ibiza Town. The people who come here arrive from the boats. If there are no boats, there are no people”.

Ibiza takes care of itself — sometimes

At the Ibiza Gran Hotel, Alicia Pons works on reception at the spa and, like many of her colleagues, describes the season as “uneven: there are very good days and very bad days. Customers are very demanding and most of them book at the last minute”.

From her position, she has noticed a trend that contrasts with Ibiza’s more hedonistic image. “Even though there is still plenty of drugs and partying, more and more people are becoming interested in wellness, and the gym is full on Sunday mornings”.

Cappuccino and Calma, which are almost next door to each other, have noticed the same change in daily habits. For both, breakfast is now the strongest period of the day. Tables fill throughout the morning and breakfast often stretches into lunchtime. By the early hours, however, tourists leave the marina in search of parties.

“At night, the chill-out area empties earlier. I suppose it is because there is such a huge choice of clubs and people prefer going out clubbing”, Claudia says.

‘The luxury and showing off they are looking for’

Wellness and club tourism are not the only two sides of Ibiza. One of the more uncomfortable accounts comes from an employee at a jewellery firm, who says she has noticed a phenomenon becoming increasingly visible each year: an increasingly blurred line between luxury tourism and sex tourism.

“They are men who arrive with four young women and then buy the cheapest jewellery in the shop”, she says. In her view, the island is starting to resemble “a destination for pimps”.

Lucía sees the same picture from another perspective. “We cannot deny that a significant part of the clientele is connected to drugs or prostitution. You can tell by the way they sit at the table with the girls. They have a lot of money, and here they find the luxury and the showing off they are looking for”.

Between yachts, jewellery and extraordinarily expensive bottles of water, Marina Ibiza is moving through the latter half of one of its most contradictory seasons: luxury is still generating revenue, but the market is changing — and even one of the island’s most exclusive enclaves cannot escape the feeling that this has been a “strange” season.