Vacationers in Portals Nous, a quaint fishing town just south of Palma, on Majorca.

Trevor Clark captured the touristic boom in color Ektachrome film.

The photographer captured tourists lounging in new hotels.

According to Deputy Prime Minister Alfonso Guerra, “the first tourists to arrive in bikinis did more for the transition [to democracy] than political speeches.”

Duty-free cigarettes and late-night dancing—what’s not to love?

… but even exercising was done in style.

An all-inclusive fortnight getaway to Continental Europe could go for $96, or less than the cost of a standard return flight.

By 1972, more than a third of all British tourists holidayed in Spain.

Spring Breakers

A new book of photographs evokes the sun-and-booze-soaked days of British holidayers in southern Spain during the 60s and beyond

In the 1970s, British holiday-makers began to be lured abroad, abandoning the bucket-and-spade beach camps of Cornwall for the sultry Mediterranean. Sixties airliners such as the Boeing 707 and the Douglas DC-8 had ushered in the jet age, and Luton and Gatwick airports became hubs for low-cost options such as Monarch, Dan-Air, and Britannia. The travel-package operators Thomas Cook, Horizon, and Instasun followed suit. “It was cowboy country,” Harry Goodman, once the head of Instasun, would recall decades later, “like the beginning of the gold rush.”

Indeed, it was a revolution. Suddenly, an all-inclusive fortnight beach getaway to Continental Europe could go for as little as $96 (half an average month’s salary), which was less than the cost of a standard return flight. Flying, exotic food, and foreigners were daunting, yes, but these three hurdles were mitigated by the presence of fellow compatriots.