British Tourists and the Beaches of Europe, from the Eighteenth Century to the 1960s

Abstract

The contribution of British demand to the growth and nature of seaside tourism elsewhere in Western Europe is undeniable. It is far from being solely a product of the later twentieth century and was much in evidence from the beginning. This chapter examines the role of the British in the rise of coastal tourism in modern Europe, from its eighteenth-century origins to the transitional 1960s, beginning with the domestic experience. This was an important influence, directly and at various removes, on subsequent developments on the European mainland. After outlining the growth of coastal tourism within and beyond Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this chapter examines the nature and influence of the British tourist presence in European coastal resorts. It begins with the English Channel and the north German coast in the late eighteenth century, passes through the Edwardian and interwar British presence in coastal Europe (especially on the Atlantic coast and in the western Mediterranean) and the ways in which these experiences fed back to influence British seaside practices, and examines the passion for Mediterranean sunshine that came to the boil in the post-Second World War generation.