I had no idea Newquay was like that but there's a centuries long association of seaside resorts and debauchery. It might have started with Prince Whoever it was in Brighton around 1810 but I suspect it's longer than that.
"straight people are weird":
About 1997 my flatmate and I went to the seaside, because it was 106 miles to Torquay, I had a car, the sun was shining and it was the weekend. I'm not sure I'd find that drive fun now but I did back then. So we found a B&B and obviously it's much cheaper to share a room than get two single rooms (which I'm not sure the B&B even had available). So the landlady looks at us semi-suspiciously, Simon with his dreadlocks and me with [supply your adjective here], and says she doesn't want any dodgy goings-on and mentions her husband is a policeman. It was 1997. We had a good weekend, I don't recall encountering any stag or hen parties but they weren't really yet a thing back then.
Fawlty Towers was set in Torquay but I didn't know Basil back then.