What was tourism like in the 1960s

There are very few people and a welcoming atmosphere: the presence of tourists even in small numbers is greeted with much enthusiasm. The first flight from Manchester to Venice following all the cancellations was on July 19th, and, with some trepidation, I was on it! Both airports were deserted with many shops closed, but there were no queues, and arrangements for boarding and disembarking were well organised with extra precautions for spacing and timing.

First impressions were that Italy generally feels much as usual, but without the bustling crowds, apart from the fact that everyone wears masks in public places. All shops provide sanitising gels and remind customers about social distancing. Travelling by train is rather different. The timetable is normal but there are notices to tell passengers only to occupy window seats, and masks are of course compulsory, with frequent reminders over the speaker system.

Each carriage has one door for entry and the other for exit to help with distancing arrangements, and platforms have marked spaces to stand. Since its inception, tourism has polarised: it reveals numerous views ranging from the total approval of its potential for enriching self-realisation combined with recreation to critical rejection due to the belief that it causes harm through the systematic dumbing down of entertainment and avoidable environmental destruction.

Beginning in the early s, an early theory of Fremdenverkehr — a now obsolete term for tourism — emerged in the German-speaking world that dealt mainly with business and economic problems; since the s, it has been replaced by the ever-expanding field of tourism studies.

This gives many disciplines the space to approach the subject of tourism, or at least aspects of it, from their own particular academic perspective. Today, tourism studies means the multi-disciplinary bundle of academic approaches in the sense of an undisguised "transdiscipline", 2 which can find different applications.

However, tourism studies does not exist as an integrated field of study. Instead, there are countless empirical accounts, case studies, approaches, theories and perspectives in individual disciplines, including economy, geography, psychology, architecture, ecology, sociology, political science and medicine. At first, the fields of business studies and economics dominated a study of tourism that was grounded in an institutional approach; 3 general accounts, 4 analyses from the cultural sciences and historical surveys 5 came conspicuously late.

Admittedly, cultural and social history, as well as historical anthropology, 6 have been opening up to the questions surrounding tourism for some time. At the same time, it is impossible to ignore the historical prerequisites and development of travelling habits and holidaying styles if one wants to understand the nature of tourism today. This is true not only of concepts and ideas associated with the topic, but also the specific insights which the disciplines employed aim to provide.

Conducting historical research on tourism within the context of the discipline of history is not synonymous with the task of writing a history of tourism or parts of it.

This article takes the second approach. It is a conscious attempt to give an overview that picks up on the classic processes, stages, types and trends of modern tourism in order to place them in the context of their historical development. In general, there is a consensus that one should understand tourism as a phenomenon of modernity and place its appearance in the context of middle-class society from about the middle of the eighteenth century.

However, this does not exclude historically older, "related" forms of travel, which should at least be remembered here. Not every journey is a touristic journey; mobility has many modalities.

It is sensible to separate travelling as a means to an end for example, expulsion, migration, war, religion, trade and travelling as an end in itself in the encoded sense of tourism education, relaxation, leisure, free time, sociability, entertainment. Recreational and educational travel already existed in the classical world and, even earlier, in Egypt under the pharaohs. In the latter, there is evidence of journeys emanating from a luxury lifestyle and the search for amusement, experience and relaxation.

The privileged groups of the population cultivated the first journeys for pleasure. Their writings tell us that they visited famous monuments and relics of ancient Egyptian culture, including, for example, the step pyramid of Sakkara , the Sphinx and the great pyramids of Gizeh — buildings that had been constructed a good thousand years earlier. They travelled to Delphi in order to question the Oracle, participated in the Pythian Games musical and sporting competitions or the early Olympic Games.

Herodot — B. Classical Rome also gave impetus to travelling and particular forms of holiday. Holiday travel became increasingly important due to the development of infrastructure. Around A. These facilitated not only the transport of soldiers and goods, but also private travel. Above all, wealthy travellers seeking edification and pleasure benefited from this system.

In the first century after Christ, there was a veritable touristic economy which organised travel for individuals and groups, provided information and dealt with both accommodation and meals.

The classical world did not only have the "bathing holiday", but also developed an early form of "summer health retreat" in swanky thermal baths and luxury locations visited by rich urban citizens during the hot months. Something that had its origins primarily in healthcare soon mutated into holidays for pleasure and entertainment, which could also include gambling and prostitution. The decline of the Roman Empire caused the degeneration of many roads.

Travel became more difficult, more dangerous and more complicated. The mobility of mediaeval corporate society was shaped by its own forms and understandings of travel tailored to diverse groups, including merchants, students, soldiers, pilgrims, journeymen, beggars and robbers. From the twelfth century, the movement of errant scholars became increasingly important. Journeys to famous educational institutions in France Paris , Montpellier , England Oxford and Italy Bologna became both a custom and a component of education.

The desire to experience the world emerged as an individual, unique guiding principle. Travelling tuned from a means into an end: now, one travelled in order to learn on the road and developed in doing so a love of travel and life that not infrequently crossed over into licentiousness and the abandonment of mores.

With regard to the motivation for travel, one can see here an important process with long-term repercussions — travelling and wandering has, since then, been seen as a means of confronting oneself and achieving self-realisation. The journeyman years of trainee craftsmen can be seen as a counterpart to those errant students "studying" at the "university of life". The travels of journeymen were part of the highly traditional world of artisan and guild structures, for which documentation exists from the middle of the 14th century.

Beginning in the 16th century, the guilds prescribed the common European practice of journeying as an obligatory element of training, often lasting three to four years.

This survived as an institution with a rich and highly regimented set of codes well into the 18th century. The fundamental idea was that one could mature and learn while travelling, experience the world and improve one's craft in order to grow through a test and return as an accomplished man. The fact that not all journeymen were successful and often suffered terrible fates is evident from reports of an "epidemic of journeymen" that circulated in the 17th and 18th centuries.

An early form and precursor of modern tourism was the grand tour undertaken by young nobles between the 16th and 18th centuries. This possessed its own, new structures that were clearly defined by corporate status: the original goal was to broaden one's education, mark the end of childhood and acquire and hone social graces; however, over time, leisure and pleasure became increasingly important.

On the one hand, this created the differentiated paradigm of travel "as an art". Route, sequence and contacts, not to mention the educational programme, were planned down to the last detail.

These provided for safety, comfort, education, supervision and pleasure in accordance with their specialised area of responsibility. From England, the tours went on to, for example, France and Italy. Trips to the classical sites of Italy represented the highpoint of the journey, but large cities in other countries were visited: London , Paris, Amsterdam , Madrid , Munich , Vienna and Prague had considerable drawing power.

During the tour, the young aristocrats visited royal courts and aristocratic estates for, after all, one goal was to teach them the appropriate etiquette and social graces through practice.

Therefore, the aristocrats' political, social and professional concerns determined the destinations, but these also catered to their interest in art, pleasure and leisure. The nobles barely came into contact with other classes and social groups — the social supervision of the entourage ensured this. This was a specific form of dirigisme that followed strong social norms, was exclusive and elitist, and aimed to preserve the rule of the aristocracy. Two aspects are of importance for the history of touristic travel: the destination and the encounter with foreign countries and sights, interestingly at the interface of a supposed cultural gap between North and South:.

From the Enlightenment into the 19th century, Bildungsreisen "educational journeys" undertaken by the upper middle class were an important stage in the development of tourism.

The travels of the educated middle classes imitated those of prominent poets and philosophers, for example Jean-Jacques Rousseau — , Charles Baron de Montesquieu — , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — [ ] , Gotthold Ephraim Lessing — , Johann Gottfried Herder — and many others.

They all travelled to Italy or France in search of edification and discussed the knowledge acquired abroad and their experiences in literary works, travelogues and travel novels. Educational travel expanded with the inclusion of other strata of the population and shorter trips. Skip to content Home P4. Travel and tourism industry in s andrewbtechp4 in Uncategorized January 27, March 8, Words. Transport development Travel was an important necessity that days used for construction works , exporting food and for people who wants to travel to point A to point B Air travel was not a very common transport option in those days as it was rare.

In easyjet was found this is when budget flights were introduced to the travel and tourism industry air travel became cheaper and available to more destinations simultaneously the channel tunnel was opened connected from great Britain to France underneath the sea From to superplanes have been introduced and dominating the travelling industry with latest technology changes , such as the A which has even more capacity to accommodate hundreds of people and use less fuel.

Destination development In Early s because of the ongoing development on the modes of transport and limited option available to everybody , not many destination were know to people as there was no technology to find out and additionally many people did not visit the destinations regularly to make it popular. Pocono mountains referred to as the honeymoon capital of the world of its romantic appeal , s was the peak year Nowadays everybody can afford holidays and the significant changes in their lifestyles and technology have developed tremendously which helps people pick their choice of locations and their available to everybody in the society so it became less cheaper than earlier because back then only huge businessman and celebrity clientele market was only active on travelling.

Technological development The technology development started to grow late after the because there was no technology related to travel and tourism industry. Product development In the early the only option available to the consumers were package holidays those holidays are inclusive of food, transportation and lodging.

Share this: Twitter Facebook More Print. Like this: Like Loading Present day travel and tourism sector. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Enter your comment here Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:.

Bombay now Mumbai : Such a busy, bustling place. Bombay had prohibition in the s, so we bought these gadgets in Tokyo that let you remove and replace the tops on tonic and ginger ale bottles without damaging the lids. Sydney : Sydney promotes such an outdoor lifestyle and was a breath of fresh air. We used to stay in Darwin too, which was amazing because of the Aboriginal culture there.

Fiji : The Fijians are the most welcoming people, and I loved going there. Not many people could afford to fly in the s so we were often among the very few foreigners there. People still sit in the gardens and watch the sunset with an expensive gin and tonic. London : I spent so much time travelling in the s that when I came home, London seemed a bit like a foreign country. Above: London - Piccadilly Circus. Our blog content is provided for interest only.

It may be produced spontaneously, without the reviewing and editing often used for more formal publications.