The Bankruptcy of the travel group Thomas Cook marks the end of the mass tourism. But it is a warning sign, such as tourism, researchers from the Hasso Spode thinks, and how the view in the history of travel suggests.
Kilometers-long traffic jams on the highways and endless queues in front of the departure of the airports of switches – so the summer in Germany holiday. However, probably the pilgrims were the first “real” travelers. Between the early excursions to the temples of the deities in Ancient Egypt up to the mass tourism of our days a few Thousand years. Changed goals since then, journey, the Art of travel and, of course, the purpose of travel. Today, the flat rate makes tourism, for the Thomas Cook 40-50 percent of the travel volume from a stand, still, appreciates Hasso Spode, who heads the Historical archive on tourism at the Technical University of Berlin. “But the Zenith is exceeded!”
“All the world is traveling!”, the writer Theodor Fontane (1819 to 1898) commented, once the wanderlust of his German compatriots. The quote is still true today, this holiday is called “paid time off for the purpose of recreation” is a European invention from the time of industrialization. The German Empire wanted to relieve his servants.
Relaxing in the holiday
Holiday for the workers was first of all a non-issue. It is only in the Weimar Republic, there was for workers, the collective leave arrangements. After the Second world war, two at the beginning, since the 1960s, three weeks of vacation per year to each employee.
What distinguishes a traveler from the tourist? “Tourism is travel without a real purpose,” said the tourism researcher. In earlier centuries, persecuted travelers always have a Mission. “The pilgrims wanted to find, for example, salvation, the conqueror conquer,” said Hasso Spode. In the 18th century. Century began to go for the fun of it.
Thomas Cook: the holiday travel for the masses
So strikes in the middle of the 19th century. Century – thanks to the spread of the railway – the birth of the “package tourism”. In July 1881, the Englishman Thomas Cook organised the first rail journey of 570 activists in the temperance movement from Leicester to the nearby Loughborough. The train journey in the open wagon of the 3. Class without seats cost a shilling per Person, is not to be used but deserve the money. The lay preacher Cook, but to guide the people out of the pub, away from the Ginflasche – “people with people and people connect with God” was his Motto. The price of the trip is also a Ham sandwich and a Cup of tea was included, by the way.
Hasso Spode
In Germany, too, creates a kind of social tourism, organised by charities and trade unions. The work wall and Bund “friends of nature” offers Hiking tours for workers. “Again and again, the quest lives on in our people, to escape the dust and the Close of the big city and the joyless work in a short period of time,” – said in a call to the Association to the “Comrades, friends-of-nature, work, wanderer!” from 1895, “to learn the knapsack on the back, the walking stick in the Hand, foot, roaming the Land, to nature and the Land and the people in the immediate intuition to know.”
Soon, the national socialists also recognize the political importance of the holiday, such as a quote from Adolf Hitler: “I want, that the worker be granted a sufficient holiday, because only alone with a people which retains its nerve, you can make a truly great policy.” Nearly 43 million trips organized in 1933 by the Nazis based leisure organization “strength through joy” (KdF). Propaganda images of the KdF show German, the rest relaxed on the sun loungers of the elegant cruise ships. At the beginning of the war concluded with the KdF-tourism. “The Nazis had control over the recreation of the citizens,” says historian Spode. The legacy can still be seen today on the island of Rügen – the colossus of Prora, in his time, “KdF-Bad to the called twenty thousand,” should be the largest seaside resort in the world. However, the beginning of the Second world war in 1939 prevented the completion.
“Bella Italia” and Spain as the “Teutonic grill”
Tourists from the bird’s-eye view
With the German economic miracle of the 1950s, the travel Fund and, therefore, the wanderlust of the Germans grows. “Slowly but surely, ventured with the beetle or the Vespa over the Alps”, describes Spode to the post-war tourism. By car, it is now a completely individual travel. By the end of the 1960s, the average income is doubled, often vacation money comes in. “Slowly the mass tourism,” says Dr. Sina, Fabian, historian and culture scholar at the HU Berlin, “if you book with a tour operator and organises the non-self.” Travel deals for the package tourism to be developed, the travel is cheaper, the mass tourism. Sociologist Spode speaks of a “democratisation of travel”.
Also spurred on the tourism: Large passenger jets to transport since the 1970s, more and more Germans of all incomes in the distance. The Spanish Mallorca is given the nickname “the cleaning lady of the island”. Beaches around the Mediterranean sea, where mainly Germans bask in the sun, to be known as the “Teutonic grill”. Rising wages and low holiday prices make it possible – the holiday for everyone.
Beach chairs at the Baltic sea beach
There is, meanwhile, in the second German state, the German Democratic Republic. “In the GDR, there was a subsidised social tourism,” said Spode. However, the state also tried here, similar to the Nazi control of the vacation of its citizens. The holiday service of the Free German trade Union Federation is the most important travel providers, under the authority of the unity party of the GDR, the SED. Almost every DDR can to citizens in the holiday. However, the choice of the holiday country is by no means free. If anyone does not abide in the GDR, it is allowed to drive only in socialist “brother” countries – Hungary, Czechoslovakia or Poland. Only with the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, it can explore the East Germans, the West Germans do the same and leave the world. “Freedom of travel” is to the word of the year of change in 1989.
Remote Relax travel: the Maldives
“The Tourist destroys what he is looking for, the Moment where he finds it,” writes Hans Magnus Enzensberger in 1957. There is talk of masses of hordes, the drive now in holiday. In the meantime, however, tourism and its problems have reached completely new dimensions: Classic holiday countries such as Greece, France, Portugal or Spain, visited annually by more Strangers than inhabitants, all the villages will damage, displace to “Menschenzoos”, tourist facilities the local population, the environment irreparably.
The history of travel, the digitization is part of. Whether it is a flight, Hotel, train ticket, Restaurant – everything can now be on your home PC book. “Individualization of the travel planning called” tourism researchers at the Hasso Spode the Megatrend that have not only brought the travel Agency industry “into a tailspin”. Also, the bankrupt travel company, Thomas Cook can sing a song. “That would be all-the-year holiday”, said the British Poet William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) once, “would the pleasure be so tedious as to work.” Boredom can be after the Bankruptcy of the British travel group Thomas Cook said.