Increasing speed on railways meant that the tourist industry
could develop internationally.
To this may be added the development of sea travel. By
1901, the number of people crossing the English Channel
from England to France or Belgium had passed 0.5 million
per year. Shipping companies were anxious to fill cabin
space that was under utilised. For example, P&O found
that the majority of their passengers for India and the
Far East joined the ship at Marseilles. Consequently, they
marketed holidays based upon sea trips from London to Lisbon
and Gibraltar. Other companies diverted their older ships
to operate cruises in the summer months.
A beach in Costa Rica.However, the real age of international
mass travel began with the growth of air travel after World
War Two. In the immediate post-war period, there was a surplus
of transport aircraft, such as the popular and reliable
Douglas Dakota, and a number of ex military pilots ready
to fly them. They were available for charter flights, and
tour operators began to use them for European destinations,
such as Paris and Ostend. Vladimir Raitz pioneered modern
package tourism when on 20 May 1950 his recently founded
company, Horizon, provided arrangements for a two-week holiday
in Corsica. For an all inclusive price of £32.10s.-,
holiday makers could sleep under canvas, sample local wines
and eat a meal containing meat twice a day - this was especially
attractive due to the continuing austerity measures in post-war
United Kingdom. Within ten years, his company had started
mass tourism to Palma (1952), Lourdes (1953), Costa Brava
(1954), Sardinia (1954), Minorca (1955), Porto (1956), Costa
Blanca (1957) and Costa del Sol (1959). However it was with
cheap air travel in combination with the package tour that
international mass tourism developed. The postwar introduction
of an international system of airline regulation was another
important factor. The bilateral agreements at the heart
of the system fixed seat prices, and airlines could not
fill blocks of empty seats on underused flights by discounting.
But if they were purchased by a tour operator and hidden
within the price of an inclusive holiday package, it would
be difficult to prove that discounting had taken place -
even though it was obvious that it had! This was the origin
of the modern mass package tour.
Another significant development also happened at the end
of this decade. The devaluation of the Spanish peseta made
Spain appear a particularly attractive destination. The
cheapness of the cost of living attracted increasing numbers
of visitors. Mass package tourism has at times been an exploitative
process, in which tour operators in a country with a high
standard of living make use of development opportunities
and low operating costs in a country with a lower standard
of living. However, as witness the development of many tourist
areas in previously poor parts of the world, and the concomitant
rise in standards of living, when there is equality of bargaining
power, both parties can gain economic benefits from this
arrangement.
Spain and the Balearic Islands became major tourist destinations,
and development probably peaked in the 1980s. At the same
time, British tour operators developed the Algarve in Portugal.
The continuing search for new, cheaper, destinations spread
mass tourism to the Greek Islands, Italy, Tunisia, Morocco,
parts of the coast of Turkey, and more recently Croatia.
For the worker living in greater London, Venice today is
almost as accessible as Brighton was 100 years ago. Consequently,
the British seaside resort experienced a marked decline
from the 1970s onwards. Some, such as New Brighton, Merseyside
have disappeared. Others have reinvented themselves, and
now cater to daytrippers and the weekend break market.
