1.1 Introduction: Pre-Tourist Travel
As far back as ancient Rome, wealthy individuals left the crowded city for the summer to enjoy the seaside, traveling for the same reason as modern tourists do—to escape their everyday lives in pursuit of pleasure. The roots of modern tourism, however, are embedded within the more recent past, beginning in the 16th and 17th centuries, when British elites began to travel in pursuit of worldly knowledge and experience. Prior, travelers journeyed for food, exploration, adventure, trade, the acquisition of lands, and to conquer the peoples inhabiting resource-rich territories. Sea voyages were undertaken for economic and political gain as well as for adventure. People also traveled to partake in religious ritual, to undergo a pilgrimage, or to proselytize religion. As Eric Zuelow (2016) explains in his book on the History of Modern Tourism, “Religious pilgrimage, at least in the West, arguably reached its zenith during the high middle ages when Europeans left their homes in order to visit an astonishing network of holy sites such as Canterbury Cathedral in England, Santiago de Compostela in Spain, Rome, and, of course, the Holy Land itself” (p. 8). The pilgrimage was codified into English literature by Geoffrey Chaucer, whose Canterbury Tales (1476) would presage the capacity of travel to bring together individuals from varied social, economic, and cultural backgrounds.
Although the roots of modern tourism date back centuries to the Grand Tour, the study of the history of tourism only developed as a full-fledged academic field in the 21st century. By 2009 enough scholars had begun to explore the field to warrant the founding of a designated Journal of Tourism History. Scholars have been driven to study the history of tourism because it illuminates the development of the modern nation-state. As Zuelow (2016) summarizes, “the tourism industry and experiences enjoyed by tourists were both shaped by and helped to create the modern world. Tourism grew from political, social, and cultural forces, emergent nationalism, new modes of consumption, intellectual change, and evolving technology” (p. 10). Just as wealthy British elites on a Grand Tour of Europe did centuries ago, today’s tourists develop an understanding of their nation’s identity by learning about and comparing it to that of other nations.
Early Reasons for Travel
- Survival & Trade: Seeking food, resources, and economic expansion
- Religious Pilgrimage and Missions: Visiting sacred sites (e.g., Canterbury, Santiago de Compostela, Mecca) and journeying to foreign lands to convert individuals to a particular religion (e.g. Spanish missionaries who worked to convert Native Americans to Catholicism; Protestant missionaries who traveled North America during the Second Great Awakening during the late-18th and early-19th centuries)
- Exploration & Colonization: Driven by curiosity, conquest, the discovery of natural resources, and territorial expansion
- Health Cures: Doctors often prescribed water cures at thermal springs, directing their patients to drink mineral water and take cold and hot baths. The first spa in England, Scarborough, and the first spa in the present-day United States, Red Springs outside of Boston, date back to the 17th century.
- Leisure Travel Emerges: Although Roman elites vacationed in the countryside as far back as the Augustan era (27 BC to AD 14), the roots of modern tourism begin with the Grand Tour, which bridged travel and tourism. The modern tourist industry began to develop into its own as spa resorts began to shift their image from curative to pleasure-seeking destinations. Seaside resorts also arose to provide urban-dwellers with relief from increasingly polluted cities.
