The kids don’t have school, the tickets have been booked and the suitcases are ready to go. The summer holidays are the moment to take a nice break for many people. A hundred years ago vacationing wasn’t for everybody though.
For centuries, children’s holidays from school weren’t meant to go on vacation: they were meant for work. Most people, in the city as well as in the countryside, would work six days a week and on Sundays they would go to church. They didn’t leave town unless they really had to. They didn’t have the time or money to go on a holiday. Most people had to spend their whole income on the most urgent things such as rent, food and clothes. They couldn’t afford the luxury of travel.
The elite would travel for pleasure, though not very often. Most of them would only go on business trips or travelled between their country homes and their townhouses. That was quite an undertaking, especially if the journey was made in a bumpy coach and the entire household had to be carried along. Young, well-off men would travel around Europe for their education. On this Grand Tour they would mostly visit the area around the Mediterranean Sea to brush up on their knowledge of the Classics. The young men would usually travel around for a couple of months and although the trips were made for educational purposes, they were also relaxing.
The beginnings of tourism
The first form of tourism as we know it arose in the nineteenth century and was health-related. Fresh air and seawater would cure all sorts of disease and so the elite travelled en masse to the seaside. In seaside resorts such as Scheveningen, luxury hotels were built and because the elite liked to be entertained during their stay, casinos, restaurants and shops also opened their doors.
World Exhibition of 1883 in Amsterdam
The recent invention of the train and automobile made it a lot easier to get to these places. Faster and more comfortable means of transportation gave tourism an enormous boost. After 1850 the World Exhibitions also contributed a lot to tourism. Big cities organized huge national exhibitions where they presented the latest gadgets. In 1883 it was Amsterdam’s turn to organize the exposition and besides the latest inventions the city promoted merchandise and treasures from the colonies. The exhibition on what is now Museum Square was held from the first of May to the first of October and attracted over one million visitors. Because of the increasing popularity of recreational bicycle tours, in that same year the ANWB was founded, the Dutch association for assistance to motorists and bicyclists. The era of mass tourism was to commence soon.
In 1919, as one of the first European countries, the Netherlands installed the free Saturday. For laborers this meant a whole free weekend! Increasing income, new and cheap mass produce and growing mobility opened up a lot of doors to the common man. More and more often the weekend was used to go away for the day and tourism started to develop. From the nineteen twenties onwards, most people would get a couple of paid holidays per year, although the Crisis before World War II put an end to that. In the nineteen fifties though, the holidays came back to stay. After a year of hard work, there would be two weeks to recuperate. Holidays are no longer just a favor lent to you by a generous boss, it is a right and a necessity.
Souvenirs
From 1919 onwards, the tourist industry grew very quickly. Everyone wanted to buy souvenirs to remember their holidays by, or presents for the people at home. A nice example of this is this wooden Bavarian chess game from 1920, with chess pieces dressed in regional dress. The region of Bavaria was very attractive because of its beautiful nature and Munich, a city rich in culture.
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