A History of Tarifa - The Story of a Brand
The first windsurfer to come to Tarifa arrived in the late 1970s. He parked his camper at the campsite Torre de la Peña, set up his board and began to sail. His identity remains anonymous, but what lies behind the simple anecdote is that after this first visitor came more than 30 schools of wind and kite surfing, some 50 hotels and more than 120 restaurants. Thanks to him, today’s Tarifa is a prosperous tourist destination.
And thanks to tourism, Tarifa now has an excellent quality of life and offers a wide variety of jobs and opportunities.
This lone windsurfer and his visit to the beach lit a spark. Tarifa is now a powerful tourism brand. However, this is also due to the hard work, imagination, enthusiasm and constancy of those who came after the first visionary visitor. These individuals created a brand for Tarifa that is the envy of many other Spanish and international tourist destinations.
The history of Tarfia’s brand can be identified with real people who forged it. The vast majority of the people who took part it in the recreation of this area of Spain can still live and work there today; many continue to lead the businesses they created many years ago. The transformation that has taken place in the area thanks to these first visionaries is so remarkable that it deserves a closer look.
Without a product (or service) there is no brand, and without a brand there is nothing to sell. Tarifa’s first product was windsurf, and the essence of windsurf in Tarifa in the early 80s was freedom. The culture of surfing offered fun, freedom and sport in equal measure. This meant a lifestyle away from daily responsibilities where you could surf all day and live in a natural, open environment.
Surf culture (which includes windsurfing, kite surfing and skating), has great commercial potential. A good number of products and brands have been created around the activity, such as equipment and clothing. Many businesses have grown up in Tarifa that manufacture clothes and equipment, branding them with the “Tarifa” name.
At first only a few friends from around the world and a few locals were attracted to this lifestyle.
Business was only secondary. The main goal was to windsurf. Although times have changed and now there is much more commercial competition in Tarifa, freedom and unspoiled nature remain adhered to the essence of the Tarifa brand. This brand offers a lifestyle that attracts more and more people who populate the area every summer, and throughout the year. Tarifa is the region in Spain with more days of wind per year and with the strongest winds. This unique natural resource serves to attract windsurfers from around the world. Many come down from other countries in Europe, with family and friends, in their campers and camp out at the beach’s edge, and surf all day rain or shine.
Curiously, it is these very winds, associated with discomfort, which prevented the growth of tourism in the area at the same rate as further along on the Costa del Sol, in places such as Marbella, La Línea de Concepción or Sotogrande. However, thanks to these winds, a different, alternative tourism came about, one that has allowed this coastal region to maintain its unspoiled character.
When Robert Van Looy arrived from Holland in 1966, and began working at the Balcón de Europa (now the Hotel Punta Sur), he could not have imagined that one day the Tourism Council of Cádiz would distinguish him for his participation in helping to grow tourism in Tarifa. Thanks to Van Looy’s work, Tarifa is now known as a destination with charming bed and breakfast hotels, windsurf and bird watching. He has been recognized as a “pioneer of the formula used by many small and medium sized businesses, to turn Tarifa into a Mecca of kite surfing, a strong tourist brand and a buoyant economy.” Van Looy has pointed out that he is not the only one who can take the merit for this growth. As he says, there are many other people who over the past 25 years have contributed to the growth of the region. Van Looy built the Hotel Dos Mares in 1975. Some of its guests at that time were diplomats from Morocco, as well as wealthy and adventurous tourists. However, the strong Levante winds, as they are called, became a deterrent for many, and after two days withstanding the wind, they would leave.
Robert did not give up, even though the general opinion about Tarifa was that it could never compete as a tourist destination. Van Looy says that he still remembers the local mayor’s skepticism when he announced that one day Tarifa would thrive thanks to the wind.
While Van Looy was responsible for creating attractive accommodations for tourists, others were busy creating an environment for extreme sports-seeking visitors. Tarifa came to be known as the place to go for extreme wind surfing. Among the pioneering entrepreneurs who helped to elevate this sport in Tarifa to one of international renown are Mario Rodiles (Hot Stick), Michel (Fun Works) and Barry (100% Fun). They were the first to open wind surf stores in Tarifa, selling boards, sails and brand name clothes. They produced their own equipment and clothing, including the Tarifa name with the brand.
Barry arrived from Australia when he was 33 in 1983. By then he was already a well-known shaper who had worked at La Herradura, Granada. A customer of his, Mario Rodiles, who had a shop in Torremolinos and sold Barry’s boards, told him about Tarifa and its fantastic sailing conditions. When Barry arrived and looked out to sea from the wild beaches of Tarifa, it was love at first sight. There, he met Peter, who later became his partner and with whom he eventually opened Hurricane Hotel. Together, they decided to open the first windsurf store in Tarifa, in 1984. There may be many who would think it crazy to open a store at kilometer 76 of a local highway. The plan was that Barry would manufacture the boards and Peter, who had a boutique in Ibiza called Graffiti, would create clothing with the 100% Fun brand. Within a few years Barry became one of the most renowned shapers in Europe and the Graffiti brand became synonymous with Tarifa fashion. The 100% Fun boards were being exported around the world and more and more shapers were drawn to the area. The fashion industry in Tarifa also began to grow at a rapid rate, with its own particular style.
In the 1980s, “Tarifa was wild, there were no wind surfing restricted areas, and you could park your car on the beach, cows scratched against your car. If you weren’t careful, cows would step on the sails.” Those are the words of Herbert Newman, a professional windsurfer who was known as Radical Herbie. “There were very few of us and we didn’t bother anybody. We were like one big family. Everything was about freedom, about doing what ever we wanted. “ Herbert arrived in Tarifa when he was 22 years old, with the same idea as everyone else: to sail all day. It was the summer of 1985 and in the car with him with his friend Obidio (shaper of Fun Cat). As the story goes, before these two crazy guys arrived, the beach was empty. In mid-August there were just a handful of people on their boards. The locals were barely aware of their presence. Now, Herbie (as he likes to be called), is one of the owners of the brand El Niño, created and developed in Tarifa.
The first businesses that opened in the area catered to people who came in to town for a drink or dinner. However, with time, and with the growth in popularity of the sport of wind surfing, more and more professional surfers were drawn to the area. Some of these professionals were international celebrities, such as Eduardo Bellini (Kitesurfing, Xtreme, Wet), a competitor in the 1994 Olympics; Fernando Hernández, Ben and Mark Welsh, Ivan Aguado, Lucas Benet, Bjorn Dunkerbec and Beat Stefen (Dwarf 8), among many others. Finally, in the 1990s, Tarifa really took off and became a tourist hot spot. Thanks to wind surf competitions that appeared in the media, word of mouth, brand name T-shirts, stickers and other brand items, the Tarifa name began to circulate around the world. Now, more and more people go to Tarifa, attracted by the chic bohemian surfer lifestyle.
Adapted from the article in the magazine Todo Tarifa, October 2008-January 2009 edition, Year 4/No. 12 - www.todotarifa.com
