As the party season begins and thousands jet in from Britain, ‘Shagaluf’ wants to take itself upmarket and curb the notorious pub crawls

Mid-afternoon on the “strip” and a group of men leaving a pizzeria have forgotten something. Staggering between tables, they notice that they’re a man down and lurch back inside. Red-faced, tripping over chairs and their own flip-flops, they eventually locate him.

“Lee!” the group yell to a slumped figure in pink shorts. Lee is face down on the chequered tablecloth in a deathly drunken slumber. “You can’t stay here, mate. He can’t, can he?”

Two good-humoured waiters firmly shake their heads and Lee, a man in his forties with a grey moustache, is hoisted to his feet.

As the afternoon drinkers straggle back to their hotels for a kip before the evening session, some of the Punta Ballena bars are warming up their sound systems for the long night ahead. Groups of men in their 40s and 50s, as well as younger crowds, drift around the town, heavily outnumbering the women and the occasional family group. One wears a T-shirt that proclaims: “Made in the UK, Destroyed in Magaluf.”

After a long winter of being abandoned to just a few elderly British and Spanish out-of-season visitors, the party resort of Magaluf in Mallorca is waking up, flexing its party muscles for a predicted record summer of tourist numbers. Spain and its islands expect some 65 million visitors this year.

The season starts with the older crowds. “The men in their 40s and 50s [arrive and] just drink and drink,” said one of the waiters, Alejandro, who seems, like many locals the Observer spoke to, unfailingly tolerant and kindly towards his alcohol-sodden British customers. “No sex, no mamading [from the Spanish for fellatio]. They might hope, but there are not enough women, so it’s too much beer and lap-dancing clubs.”

The young crowd usually arrives after exams in June and July to provide the now traditional street scenes of teenage depravity. But the days of Magaluf being a byword for vodka for breakfast and sexual excess could be numbered. New regulations are being considered by the town hall to curb some of the drinking practices and to rein in, or at least limit, the notorious organised pub crawls. Talks are under way to bring British police to the town to help keep order, said Montserrat Jaén, the director general for tourism in the Balearic Islands.

Even Magaluf itself, or “Maga” to the old hands who come back year after year, is in line for a name change. “We’re thinking Calviá Resorts,” said Jaén. She said the town’s makeover was under way with a €1.5m project to transform the main Avenida de Magaluf to “make it a place that looks as it should look”, with a further €3m to improve quality for tourism.

“It’s been designated a ‘mature area’, which means it needs priority relaunch,” said Jaén.

Hotel owners have been pressured into making improvements and refurbishments to strict deadlines, something that has already garnered results for this holiday season. “We have seen 33 hotels [and 10 apartment complexes] increase their star ratings already,” she said.

Inspectors will be looking to ensure that quality standards are upheld in restaurants and bars. “We want to upgrade and reposition the idea of Magaluf,” said Jaén. “Investment will bring refurbishment and so prices can increase. You cannot raise prices if standards are falling.”

As the Spanish economic crisis eases, she said, domestic tourism is increasing too, although Britons make up a third of the country’s tourists.

The rebrand is a direct response to Spain’s discomfort at the ever-plummeting reputation of Magaluf. Mallorca attracts most of its tourists through its agri-tourism, its city breaks in culture-rich Palma, and its cycling and hiking holidays in the mountainous north. The island would rather be known for its beautiful wines than Punta Ballena’s locally distilled vodka and brightly coloured shots, says Jaén. “[This street is] just 400 metres long and only 1% of all our tourists go there, yet so much attention is paid to it! I don’t understand,” she said.

In 2012 alone, three British tourists died falling from hotel balconies. Reports of rapes and muggings have risen. Last year Magaluf’s notoriety peaked with the “mamading” scandal. In one incident that made international headlines, mobile phone footage of an 18-year-old from Northern Ireland giving oral sex to 24 men on a Carnage Magaluf pub crawl, egged on by a DJ calling her a “slag”, went viral.

“It is time to shout from the rooftops that we don’t want this tourism. It’s not worth it,” declared the Majorca Daily Bulletin in response. The regional government condemned a “degrading image of women and the Balearics”.

But between now and May, when new restrictions on pub crawls and drinking in the street are expected to come into force, the hundreds of people disgorging from flights from Bristol, London, Newcastle, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow are looking for the old Magaluf – sunshine, cheap accommodation and cheaper alcohol. They want to buy food they recognise from people who speak their language and, if they choose to, behave disgracefully without worrying about it. They don’t want their party to end.

“Of course, we’ll comply with whatever they come up with, but it’ll be tinkering,” said the British owner of a Magaluf bar. “It’s more business for me if they can’t be sitting on the pavement swigging from bottles.

“Regeneration has been going on, we’ve been doing it. It’s in our interests to do so and it’s about time the Spanish caught up,” he said, pointing to his new signage. “Nobody wants the mayor reacting to a few tabloid shock stories and taking away licences. There’re too many livings dependent here; it would be stupid.”

Cab driver Manuel has worked in Magaluf for more than 15 years and is doing well. His wife has just opened a new hair salon. “I used to work the bars, so I know – there is nothing new. The only difference is that now there are camera phones. Fifteen years ago, the beach was full of people having sex every night. ‘Shagaluf’, they called it. Now its ‘mamading’ and every night there are fights and men with blood all over them. The police and the ambulance are busy but this is what it is. Everyone drinks too much, they party, they go home. No harm done and the bar owners have big villas,” he said.

“The new laws will change nothing. So they don’t drink in the street – why would they need to, when the bars are cheap? The only problem is that the season is getting shorter, it’s too quiet now. Come back in July,” he laughs, turning up the volume on his car sound system to a deafening level, “then it’s disco cab!”

Sitting on the beach this weekend was Claire Ferris from Bristol, celebrating her 40th with a weekend away with 19 family and friends. They hadn’t been to bed since arriving late the night before. One, Marie Batt, says she’s had “a bottle of schnapps for breakfast”, but jokes that she’s kept her top on so far.

“I’ve heard they’re hoping to make it a bit more family-oriented, but it already is,” said Julie Coles. “I’d bring kids here; it’s [got] a lovely beach and there are the karaoke bars and the waterpark – plenty of options. It’s fabulous. Just keep away from the strip.”