ABSTRACT
In the twenty-first century there are many who appear determined to live in what Eric Hobsbawm termed ‘a permanent present’. Some, perhaps, to quote LP Hartley’s famous aphorism, because ‘the past is a foreign country; they do things differently there’; others, because they fail to see the relevance of past events to modern times. But it is also widely agreed that those who forget their history are condemned to repeat it. At least one can safely argue that most of the seeds of the future can be traced in the past. For tourism this is especially true of the inter-war years. In many ways it was a sad and tragic period lasting only 21 years, characterized by grinding unemployment and poverty for many in the 1930s. Such conditions facilitated the rise of ruthless dictatorships in Germany, Russia, Italy and elsewhere in Europe that would set the scene for the Second World War. But it was also a time of great incipient change, especially in the social conditions
of the population, emerging lifestyles, better communications, growing political awareness and action. This period witnessed a transition away from the Victorian Age toward the new world of greater individuality, mobility and invention in most spheres of daily life, and especially in leisure and travel. Against what one might suppose, as this chapter notes, it was also a period of remarkable growth in travel and tourism and of developing social ideas that are still easily traceable today.
