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TOURISM

Campsite predator charged with child rape

French prosecutors on Sunday brought charges including raping a minor against a paedophile who has admitted to five serious sexual assaults on girls at French campsites this summer.

Published: 13 August 2012 10:23 CEST

The 32-year-old man, who was convicted of a similar offence 12 years ago, according to the interior ministry, was charged on counts including rape of a minor under 15 years of age and sexual assault of a minor causing injury or mutilation, said Avignon deputy prosecutor Olivier Couvignou in a statement.

The charges concerned alleged sexual assaults on five girls ranging in age from six to 17 and carried out between late June and August 8, Couvignou added.

The man was arrested Friday in connection with an incident in the early hours of August 8 in which an 11-year-old was attacked as she slept alongside
her 10-year-old sister in a tent on a campsite at Saint-Didier-sous-Aubenas in the Ardèche region of central France.

He subsequently confessed to four other recent attacks on girls holidaying at campsites in an area popular with nature-lovers from all over Europe.

Three of the victims were French, one Dutch and one German.

The prosecutor in charge of the case confirmed that DNA evidence had helped police track the man to his home in the tiny village of Brune in the southern
Ardèche.

He had been placed on a national DNA database in 2000 after receiving a one-year suspended sentence for sexual assault.

According to neighbours, local police were informed 18 months ago that the man, a divorced tiler who lived alone, had been downloading pornographic
images of children.

"About a year and a half ago, myself and some friends were trying to find a video on his computer and we came across pictures of rapes and other
paedophile images in his browsing history," said Warren, an 18-year-old who described himself as having been a friend of the man until then.

Officers at the nearest police station, in nearby Pouzin, declined to comment when asked to clarify what exactly they had been told at the time.

Police are also expected to face questions as to whether they should have been quicker to alert tourists to the potential threat.

The girl attacked last week and her sister were sleeping on their own in a tent next to the caravan occupied by their parents.

Just hours before the suspect's arrest on Friday evening, prosecutor Franck Alzingre had told reporters there was no evidence that a serial attacker was
operating in the area.

Local tourist chiefs, apparently concerned about the potential impact of the situation on visitor numbers, also repeatedly expressed scepticism about
what they described as mere "rumours".

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TRAVEL NEWS

Why are fewer British tourists visiting Spain this year?

Almost 800,000 fewer UK holidaymakers have visited Spain in 2023 when compared to 2019. What’s behind this big drop?

Published: 23 August 2023 11:36 CEST
Updated: 26 August 2023 18:32 CEST
Why are fewer British tourists visiting Spain this year?

Spain welcomed 12.2 million UK tourists between January and July 2023, 6 percent less when compared to the same period in 2019, according to data released on Monday by Spanish tourism association Turespaña.

This represents a decrease of 793,260 British holidaymakers for Spain so far this year.

Conversely, the number of Italian (+8 percent), Irish (+15.3 percent), Portuguese (+24.8 percent), Dutch (+4 percent) and French tourists (+5 percent) visiting España in 2023 are all above the rates in 2019, the last pre-pandemic year. 

German holidaymakers are together with their British counterparts the two main nationalities showing less interest in coming to Spanish shores.

Britons still represent the biggest tourist group that comes to Spain, but it’s undergoing a slump, with another recent study by Caixabank Research suggesting numbers fell particularly in June 2023 (-12.5 percent of the usual rate). 

READ ALSO: Spain fully booked for summer despite most expensive holiday prices ever

So are some Britons falling out of love with Spain? Are there clear reasons why a holiday on the Spanish coast is on fewer British holiday itineraries?

According to Caixabank Research’s report, the main reasons are “the poor macroeconomic performance of the United Kingdom, the sharp rise in rates and the weakness of the pound”.

This is evidenced in the results of a survey by British market research company Savanta, which found that one in six Britons are not going on a summer holiday this year due to the UK’s cost-of-living crisis.

Practically everything, everywhere has become more expensive, and that includes holidays in Spain: hotel stays are up 44 percent, eating out is 13 percent pricier, and flights are 40 percent more on average. 

READ ALSO: How much more expensive is it to holiday in Spain this summer?

Caixabank stressed that another reason for the drop in British holidaymakers heading to Spain is that those who can afford a holiday abroad are choosing “more competitive markets” such as Turkey, Greece and Portugal. 

And there’s no doubt that the insufferably hot summer that Spain is having, with four heatwaves so far, has also dissuaded many holidaymakers from Blighty from overcooking in the Spanish sun. 

With headlines such as “This area of Spain could become too hot for tourists” or “tourists say it’s too hot to see any sights” featuring in the UK press, budding British holidaymakers are all too aware of the suffocating weather conditions Spain and other Mediterranean countries are enduring. 

Other UK outlets have urged travellers to try out the cooler Spanish north rather than the usual piping hot Costa Blanca and Costa del Sol destinations.

Another UK poll by InsureandGo found that 71 percent of the 2,000+ British respondents thought that parts of Europe such as Spain, Greece and Turkey will be too hot to visit over summer by 2027.

There’s further concern that the introduction in 2024 of the new (and delayed) ETIAS visa for non-EU visitors, which of course now also applies to UK nationals, could further compel British tourists to choose countries to holiday in rather than Spain.

READ MORE: Will British tourists need to pay for a visa waiver to enter Spain?

However, a drop in the number of British holidaymakers may not be all that bad for Spain, even though they did spend over €17 billion on their Spanish vacations in 2022. 

Towns, cities and islands across the country have been grappling with the problem of overtourism and the consequences it has on everything from quality of life for locals to rent prices. 

READ ALSO: ‘Beach closed’ – Fake signs put up in Spain’s Mallorca to dissuade tourists

The overcrowded nature of Spain’s beaches and most beautiful holiday hotspots appears to be one of the reasons why Germans are visiting Spain in far fewer numbers. A recent report in the country’s most read magazine Stern asked “if the dream is over” in their beloved Mallorca.

Spanish authorities are also seeking to overhaul the cheaper holiday package-driven model that dominates many resorts, which includes moving away from the boozy antics of young British and other European revellers.

Fewer tourists who spend more are what Spain is theoretically now looking for, and the rise in American, Japanese and European tourists other than Brits signify less of a dependence on the British market, one which tends to maintain the country’s tourism status quo for better or for worse.

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