ABSTRACT
The Marshall Plan financed both investments in the rebuilding and modernization of hotels, spas, cable cars and ski lifts, and streets and transportation facilities between 1950 and 1955. Langer-Hansel pointed out that the American Marshall planners had been stressing the importance of tourism as a crucial factor in the reconstruction of the European economy. Austrian tourism needed to stay competitive with the other European countries and therefore had to participate vigorously in all the Paris Marshall Plan organizations dealing with tourism affairs. The success story of post-war Austrian tourism was closely related to attracting German mass tourism, slowly transforming homely Austrian Gasthauser, catering to local peasant populations, into big hotels attracting an international clientele. Austrians needed to appreciate foreigners as friends and learn hospitality so they could profit from them. The return of German tourists was crucial for the revival of post-war Austrian tourism.
