Abstract
After the Second World War, the United States played an active, direct role in Europe’s recovery and integration. The effort to modernize the European tourism industry—including its physical infrastructures—became a cornerstone of U.S. postwar foreign policy. The American goal was to create a single, open European market and a “modern consumer society.” This was to counter the perceived communist and socialist threats. The plan was for European leisure patterns to resemble—if not mimic—the “American way of leisure.” By the late 1940s, this American consumption regime was clearly defined, characterized by individual freedom; car mobility; national and transnational highways; roadside hotels and restaurants; open borders; and open skies.
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Notes
Neal Moses Rosendorf, “Be El Caudillo’s Guest: The Franco Regime’s Quest for Rehabilitation and Dollars after World War II via the Promotion of U.S. Tourism to Spain,” Diplomatic History 30 (2006): 380. U.S. official citation in: OEEC Executive Committee, “Executive Committee: Supplementary Report on Tourism,” OEEC/1020, CE (49)024, February 25, 1949, 9, Historical Archives of the EU, European University Institute (EUI), Florence, Italy (hereafter cited as Historical Archives of the EU). The OEEC, established to administer Marshall Aid, bluntly stated in 1951 that from the onset it had “been concerned with the question of American tourism in Europe, for it was realized that this invisible export in the fullest sense of the word could make an important contribution towards solving the dollar shortage. It is for this reason that the Council has, from time to time, taken a number of decisions for the purpose of promoting the development of the tourist industry.”
See OEEC, Tourism and European Recovery (Paris: OEEC, 1951), 5.
Christopher Endy, Cold War Holidays: American Tourism in France (Chapel Hill: University of North Caolina Press, 2004), 9, 12, 81–2;
Brian A. McKenzie, “Creating a Tourist’s Paradise: The Marshall Plan and France, 1948 to 1952,” French Politics, Culture and Society 21 (2003): 35–54.
Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century (London: Penguin Books, 1999), 290–331.
Ruth Oldenziel, “Is Globalization a Code Word for Americanization?” Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis 4 (2007): 84–106; Rosendorf, “Be El Caudillo’s Guest,” 367–407.
In focusing on the differences between European and U.S. distribution systems, and how the U.S. system changed European systems, De Grazia introduced the concept of the consumption regime. Because tourism, like distribution, both embodies and links production and consumption, I use the term “tourism regime.” See Victoria de Grazia, “Changing Consumption Regimes in Europe, 1930–1970: Comparative Perspectives on the Distribution Problem,” in Getting and Spending: European and American Consumer Societies in the Twentieth Century, ed. Susan Strasser, Charles McGovern, and Matthias Judt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 78. De Grazia’s regime argument is also central but less pronounced in her Irresistible Empire: America’s Advance through 20th-Century Europe (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap of Harvard University Press, 2005).
Ruth Oldenziel and Adri A. Albert de la Bruhèze, “Theorizing the Mediation Junction for Technology and Consumption,” in Manufacturing Technology, Manufacturing Consumers: The Making of Dutch Consumer Society, ed. Adri A. Albert de la Bruhèze and Ruth Oldenziel (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009), 9–40;
Theo Beckers and Hans Mommaas, “Onderzoek van de vrijetijd,” in Het Vraagstuk van den Vrijen Tijd: 60 jaar onderzoek naar vrijetijd, ed. Theo Beckers and Hans Mommaas (Leiden: Stenfert Kroese, 1991), 2–10.
A narrative on the mediation of Dutch consumer society in the twentieth century can be found in Manufacturing Technology, Manufacturing Consumers: The Making of Dutch Consumer Society, ed. Adri A. Albert de Bruhèze and Ruth Oldenziel (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009).
Although mass tourism was predicted, in the period from 1945 to 1970 more than half of the Dutch population did not take a summer vacation. See Matea F. A. Linders-Rooijendijk, Gebaande wegen voor mobiliteit en vrijetijdsbesteding II: De ANWB van Vereniging naar Instituut, 1937–1983 (The Hague: ANWB, 1992), 732;
Aaltje Hessels, Vakantie en Vakantiebesteding sinds de Eeuwwisseling (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1973), 225, 233. In the 1950s, the Dutch Central Statistics Agency (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek) defined a vacation as “a stay of two or more days outside of one’s own domicile.” Recreation was defined as “less than a two-day stay outside of one’s own domicile.” See Linders-Rooijendijk, Gebaande wegen voor mobiliteit en vrijetijdsbesteding II, 622. In 1955, a one-week paid holiday for all employees was regulated by law. In 1961, the five-day work week was introduced; in 1963 the government ended its controlled wage policy; and in 1966 a two-week paid vacation was mandated by law. This included a vacation allowance of 4 percent of the annual salary.
See Gijs Mom and Ruud Filarski, Van Transport naar Mobiliteit: De mobiliteitsexplosie, 1895–2005 (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2008), 249.
Wiardi Beckman Stichting, De Consument in de Maatschappij: De organisatorische behartiging van het consumentenbelang (Amsterdam: Wiardi Beckman Stichting, 1956);
Elisabeth Boissevain and Ton de Joode, Tussen Koop en Miskoop: De Consument en zijn belangen in Nederland (Amsterdam: Ideeboek, 1976), 61–3;
Nederlandse Katholieke Middenstandsbond, Middenstand en Consument: Verslagboek Studiedagen N.R.K.M. 1964, Scheveningen (The Hague: Nederlandse Katholieke Middenstandsbond, 1964), 18–23; Oldenziel and Albert de la Bruhèze, “Theorizing the Mediation Junction for Technology and Consumption,” 9–40.
Elisabeth G. Boissevain, member of the Dutch Physical Planning Service, “Vacantiemogelijkheden in de toekomst,” Toeristen Kampioen 9 (1946): 7–9;
Centraal Werkcomité Vacantie, Verslag van het Congres inzake de toekomstige ontwikkeling van de vacantie-accommodatie in Nederland, belegd op 10 december 1949 te Utrecht (The Hague: Centraal Werkcomité, 1949);
Theo Beckers, “Planning voor Vrijheid: Een historisch-sociologische studie van de overheidsinterventie in rekreatie en vrije tijd” (PhD diss., Landbouwhogeschool Wageningen, 1983); Beckers and Mommaas, Het Vraagstuk van den Vrijen Tijd.
Theo Siraa, Een Miljoen Woningen: De rol van de Rijksoverheid bij wederopbouw, volkshuisvesting, bouwnijverheid en ruimtelijke ordening 1940–1963 (The Hague: SDU, 1989), 53; Mom and Filarski, Van Transport naar Mobiliteit;
Johan Schot, Gijs Mom, Ruud Filarski, and Peter Eloy Staal, “Concurrentie en Afstemming: Water, Rails, Weg en Lucht,” in Transport en Communicatie, vol. 5, Techniek in Nederland in de Twintigste Eeuw, ed. Johan Schot et al. (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2002), 38.
Frank Schipper, Driving Europe: Building Europe on Roads in the Twentieth Century (Amsterdam: Aksant, 2008), 172–86.
Executive Committee OEEC, “Executive Committee: Supplementary Report on Tourism,” OEEC/1020, CE (49)024, February 25, 1949, 1–22, quote on p. 19, Historical Archives of the EU;
Executive Committee OEEC, “Executive Committee: Urgent Matters for the Development of Tourism in Europe,” OEEC/1020, CE (49)035, March 2, 1949, 1–9, Historical Archives of the EU.
Archive ANWB, Management Archive, Meetings and Reports from the Daily Board, 1947–1948, D18; Archive ANWB, Management Archive, Filing Cabinet 55, Box K06-Camp Tourism; “Een Butlinkamp in Zandvoort.” De Kampioen 8 (1947); J. Veeninga, “Vacantie met z’n duizenden,” Archive ANWB, Management Archive, Meetings and Reports from the Daily Board, 1947–1948, D18.
Beckers, “Planning voor Vrijheid,” 162–9; Jos Berendsen, Peter Saal, and Flip Spangenberg, Met Zicht op Zee: Tweehonderd jaar bouwen aan badplaatsen in Nederland, België en Duitsland (The Hague: Staatsuitgeverij, 1985), 81–6.
Andrew K. Sandoval-Strausz, Hotel: An American History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), 111, 129–33;
Annabel Jane Wharton, Building the Cold War: Hilton International Hotels and Modern Architecture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 1–11, 159–93. In 1954, the Hilton Hotel Corporation took over the Statler Hotel Company.
Rijksdienst voor het Nationale Plan, Beschouwingen Betreffende de Wederopbouw der Noordzeeplaatsen (The Hague: Rijksdienst voor het Nationale Plan, 1947); “Vreemdelingenverkeer in de Benelux,” Toeristen Kampioen 12 (1949): 376; “Niet kortzichtig maar voorzichtig,” Hotelwereld 4, no. 10 (1949): 131–3; “De nieuwbouw van hotels,” Hotelwereld 4, no. 11 (1949); “Electorale show van ondernemingsgeest en doorzettingsvermogen,” Hotelwereld 5, no. 10 (1950): 128–9.
Contemporary data on the dollar amount spent by U.S. tourists in the Netherlands are rather ambiguous. According to a publication of the Krasnapolsky Hotel in Amsterdam, 27,000 Americans visited the Netherlands in 1948, spending $1,677,000 (approximately 4.5 million guilders). In 1949, 34,000 visiting Americans spent $2,763,000 (7.5 million guilders), and in 1950, 44,000 visiting Americans spent $4,571,000 (12.3 million guilders). When the total revenues from foreign tourism in the Netherlands are tabulated, the dollar amount spent by U.S. tourists in 1948–1950 illustrates that Dutch hotels could not survive on American tourists alone. The total revenues from foreign tourism in the Netherlands in 1948 was 26 million guilders; in 1949 it was 35 million guilders; in 1950 it was 63 million guilders; and in 1951 it was 107 million guilders “Kras” Commercieel, cultureel en zakelijk middelpunt: De financiering van haar modernisering en uitbreiding in een moeilijke tijd (Amsterdam: Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky, 1952), 7, 10; Albertus B. A. Van Ketel, “Het voorbeeld van Marshall-steun voor de hotel-industrie in Nederland,” Maandschrift Economie: Tijdschrift voor algemeen economische, bedrijfseconomische en sociale vraagstukken 16 (1952): 410.
These practical schools for lower-level personnel co-existed with the higherlevel hotel school that had existed since 1930. See “Research,” Hotelwereld 4, no. 7 (1949): 89–90; De Zakenwereld 29, no. 3 (1951): 39.
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© 2015 Adri A. Albert de la Bruhèze
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Albert de la Bruhèze, A.A. (2015). Confronting the Lure of American Tourism: Modern Accommodation in the Netherlands. In: Lundin, P., Kaiserfeld, T. (eds) The Making of European Consumption. The Palgrave Macmillan Transnational History Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137374042_8
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