Faliraki: victim of its own image?

With names such as Bar Street and Club Street, you can tell holidaymakers don't go to the Rhodes resort of Faliraki for the history. While less than 10 miles away tourists mill around the fortifications of Rhodes town, on the seafront of Faliraki the culture is more about sun, sand and sex.

Faliraki's 60 clubs and bars fill up night after night with young travellers intent on partying until dawn. But a note of caution is sounding out amid the beats - a string of alleged rapes on the Greek island resort is threatening to ruin its hedonistic image.

So far this year, there have been five alleged rapes of British girls in Rhodes, compared with eight for the whole of 2001, according to Foreign Office statistics. Last month, 28-year-old Kate Liristi was the victim of a vicious rape after being followed from a bar, and two years ago 25-year-old Wendy Sullivan from Cheshire was strangled to death. Faliraki is beginning to sound like a scary place for a youth holiday and a potential nightmare for every parent waving their children off for fun in the sun.

It is probably a victim of the high profile it gained when ITV screened the fly-onthewall Club Reps based on Faliraki in December. According to a spokesman from the Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA). "Rape is not restricted to a particular kind of holiday or resort. Because of the Club Reps programme Faliraki is very high profile." After the documentary, bookings soared 30 per cent, says ABTA, making it the latest in a trail of clubbing hot spots from Ibiza to Ayia Napa.

In Faliraki, Nicky, who is working at Bunny's Pub, summed up the attitude of young holidaymakers. "We hear stories but people aren't nervous. I feel more in danger in London." And in the UK, Paul Little, Club 18-30's overseas manager for the eastern Mediterranean, said, "We take 100,000 people (to Mediterranean resorts) every year. We give tourists information about possible attacks, just as we do about drinking water and not hiring mopeds.î

Other than a spate of high-profile attacks, the evidence across the Med is fragmentary. Preliminary Foreign Office figures for 2001 show there were 29 allegations of rape of British citizens in Greece, compared with 19 in Spain. No figures were available to show if this was significantly different in other Med destinations. The scenes of drunkenness and confessions of three-in-a bed sex in the Club Reps programme have perhaps given the wrong impression, making certain resorts a target for predatory men.