im sorry to say it but a few work collegues have been out to beni this year and were caught up in fights in the square

they did say it was brittish and foreigners involved and they were really drunk

iv been taking my kids for past 15 year at least twice a year and have seen few drunken fights but wouldnt stop me going back i see more fights looking out my window on a saturday night

ive been here about 10 days now , and ive not seen any bother , hardly any romanians and no pea men.

lots more police patrols than the last time i was here in april.

i dont drink in the square right enough , better pubs at the end of levanti end .

Hi, Just wanted to reply, i have no reason to lie, i have mearly posted a warning for other holiday makers to be very careful so this dreadfull incident doesnt happen to anyone else. i am new to this forum, i have never felt the need to use one of these sights until now. As a WARNING
And yes your right it wasnt a wonderful 7 day holiday as part of it was blighted by these 2 lowe lifes. but i wasnt going to let them ruin the rest of my holiday.
We were on a road called (Calle de Viena) leading up to the Palm Beach Hotel (on the hill) it was 2 am and we were not drunk. there was no one else in that particular road i think that is why they came after us there and not on previous roads we went up.
PS. Were is this muggers alley you talk about?
Is it were we were mugged/terrorised?
The woman who pick pocketed the elderly mans wallet looked like a Spanish gypsy, and spoke spanish.
I hope this information can help others not terrify them.

Hi Molly 100, well if it is a genuine post then please accept my apologies.

Sue

Mine too.

Sorry to hear of this, previous years it always was around the poseidon.This did happen in the same area to my son's mother in law.Benidorm now has more immigrants than Spanish Nationals in it.Trouble is that places get bigger and I do think you have to treat it as a City and exercise precaution.I don't think there are many places on this earth where something doesn't go on. We all accept it going on around us at home but on holiday in a foreign country it's like being a fish out of water.No one wants to experience it.

Joyce-e wrote:

Benidorm now has more immigrants than Spanish Nationals in it.

Are you sure?? When I went to Benidorm in 2006 there were obviously East Europeans, British etc. but I didn't think they were the majority population.

Just wondered what your source of info was?

Thanks
Mark

Hi Sue and Pebbles
This is genuine mail, and thank you for your appologies.

Benidorm now has more immigrants than Spanish Nationals in it.

I'd be grateful if you could provide your source of information to substantiate that very misleading and detrimental quote, which as far as I'm aware and according to the official National statistics, is not true, and anybody reading your quote, could be easily deterred from visiting Benidorm.

Benidorm is a cosmopolitan town/city and it's so popular that it does have the highest number of immigrants (for a town) within Spain, but considering anyone who is not a Spanish National is an immigrant, that also includes the British who live there.
The statistics for 2007 state that Benidorm has a permanent population of 69,058, but that figure is probably higher because of a percentage of people not registering with the town hall, to avoiding paying tax.

Out of that figure of 69,058
61.486 are classed as Europeans
48,810 are Spanish....so that only leaves 20,248 immigrants and out of those immigrants.......
11.358 are from the EU countries EG: UK, Holland, Belgium, Sweden.
1.318 are from European countries outside the EU...then the figures are broken down further: Africa, Latin America and Asia, the highest immigrant population coming from outside Europe, is coming from Latin America.

However, these figures are for immigrants and that means anybody who is not a Spanish National, not illegal immigrants.
Illegal immigrants are coming from Eastern Europe (the Balkan states EG: Romania, Albania and noting the high legal immigration figure for immigrants from outside Europe, which is Latin America (4.519) there are also illegal immigrants coming from Ecuador.

Now I'm not suggesting that crime doesn't happen in Benidorm, but I really wish people would put into perspective and look at the big picture.
The whole of Europe and particularly Spain is suffering from illegal immigration and crime, nobody knows the true figure of illegals in the country, the Spanish Government reckon there's between 600,00 and 700,000, but illegals move around the country to avoid the authorities, so it's near impossible to put a factual figure on the number of illegal immigrants.
Gordon Brown couldn't tell you the number we have in the UK, he could only give an estimation.!

Illegals in Spain have to commit crimes to survive, they have no other alternative apart from trying to find work within the black market.
Prostitution is not illegal in Spain and people who exploit young girls and women for sexual pleasures are enticing these women into Spain with false offers of a job, like being a waitress in a highly popular tourist resort, which during the height of the season the number of people in Benidorm swells to 1.3 million"¦.the job offers never materialise, so they work the streets.

Benidorm is no better and no worse than Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia, Alicante or Malaga"¦.it's a matter of putting it into perspective and accepting the situation in Europe today, it's tragic if you have the misfortune to become the next victim, but I firmly believe that some people make themselves a sitting target.
If you went to London would you expect that to be crime free.? There's plenty of pockets picked in London every day and in the suburbs there's plenty of knives carried around, So, why do people expect Benidorm to be crime free and different from some suburbs in the UK.?

The authorities are fighting a losing battle, all they can hope for, is to keep the lid on this, if they didn't keep trying, then the crime rate would go through the roof tomorrow.

http://www.ive.es/portal/page/portal/IVE_PEGV/CONTENTS/padron/pmc/ini_cas.htm

Sanjiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

Excellent post Sanji and very well put.

The info about the immigrant population was from the diarioinformacion newspaper.Also I have a friend who is a local news reader on tv there.Plus friends who run business's in benidorm and have done so for over 30yrs.

Yes, Benidorm does have the highest immigrant population within Spain for a town of its size, it's a cosmopolitan town, verging on city status.
Benidorm isn't just Levante beach, the area classed as Benidorm includes catchment area's from (east to west) the Sierra Helada mountains through to Cala Finestrat and heading South as far as Terra Mittica.
As I've already explained, immigrants are anybody who is not a Spanish National.

Legal immigrants are not the problem, they consist of people who work and run business's, and also retire in Benidorm.
They don't have to rob and steal from the tourists, if they're legal, then they pay into the system and are entitled to benefits.

This topic is about fights and muggings that are taking place within Benidorm and the crimes being committed in Benidorm are being committed by ILLEGAL immigrants, so what your quote suggests, is that Benidorm has more illegal immigrants than the Spanish population, which is totally ridiculous.
The National Statistics state that 48,810 are Spanish, so even the legal immigrants do not out number the indigenous population.

Do some people know the difference between an illegal immigrant and a legal one.?

Sanji

Sorry just had to say I think Torrevieja has the highest immigrant population, scroll down to the population section on this article on Wikipedia (OK, its not necessarly 100% accurate but I'm guessing the info must have come from somewhere)

Illegal immigrants by their very nature cannot be included as officially they are not there as Sanji has already mentioned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torrevieja

Also I understand that Fuengirola has a very high immigrant popular (most from the UK)

Mark

WARNING

this topic is becoming political stick to general discussion's or the topic will be locked

wizard

Sorry, my post was no way intended to be 'political', more a general discussion about the make-up of the general population. Granted, it was off topic though.

Apologies
Mark

From what I have seen from the years I have being living here, fights in all holiday resorts are generally caused by boozed up holiday makers. Immigration has nothing to do with that particular problem.

As far as muggings are concerned, there is no particular nationality that can be blamed. A Spanish national is just as likely to mug you as an immigrant, illegal or not.

The original poster seemed to want to know if Benidorm was a safe place to holiday. I suppose in comparison it is, as long as your comparison is with walking alone at night through any city in the UK.

However, for your own safety, I would suggest that you treat it as the most dangerous place on Earth. That way you will keep your wits about you and have a trouble free holiday.

Oly Daze wrote:

However, for your own safety, I would suggest that you treat it as the most dangerous place on Earth. That way you will keep your wits about you and have a trouble free holiday.

Sorry, I don't agree, sensible precautions is all that is required. Don't wear loads of expensive jewellery, don't fall around the streets at 4 in the morning etc etc.

If you treated it like the most dangerous place on earth you'd probably end up getting mugged because you'd look so un-street wise!! Not to mention you'd be on edge unnecessarly for your entire holiday.

Just go and enjoy, relax be aware but not alarmed - and this is the same advice for anywhere.

Mark

As far as muggings are concerned, there is no particular nationality that can be blamed. A Spanish national is just as likely to mug you as an immigrant, illegal or not.

Sorry, I don't agree with that either, you can't bury your head in the sand and pretend that the increase in crime has nothing to do with the increase of illegal immigrants.
I suppose they all live and survive on fresh air then.?
When someone says I was pick pocketed by a Spanish gypsy because they spoke Spanish, well it's funny that the immigrants legal or illegal that are in Benidorm from Latin America, also speak Spanish, and unless you can recognise the difference, that "Spanish" gypsy could be from Ecuador.

Don't bother because I can be bothered anymore in this topic. it's like banging your head against a brick wall in here.
I'm sick of it.

I am well capable of detecting international language variations between Spanish speaking countries, as well as the regional variations that we have in Spain.

The majority of menial workers, the type that holidaymakers would come across, such as waiters, hotel maids, cleaners, etc., are either South American or Eastern European. They are widely employed despite the occasional ‘crackdowns' and fines given to those found to be employing them. If they were to try to survive in the Country by resorting to crime they would stand out like sore thumbs to the police, targeted and quickly sent packing.

Sanji is right. It is unwise to assume that anyone speaking the language is Spanish, but it is also naive to assume that a Spanish National will not rob you given half a chance.

If an Illegal immigrant wants to stay illegal, and not deported, then they are well advised to stay under the radar and out of trouble. That is what they generally do.

Crime increases dramatically in all holiday resorts during the peak holiday season and reduces during the off season. This, of course, has nothing whatsoever to do with immigration. Immigrants have to survive all year round. But I take the point that crime has increased overall in recent years, both here as elsewhere, and economic migration must play some part.

I also accept Mark's point about sensible precautions, but I don't really know how anyone can be 60 or 70% vigilant. And I suspect that anybody that has been the victim of a crime either here or elsewhere would wish that they had upped their ‘precaution rating' to 100%.