The first revolution in popular tourism began 200 years ago, in the period following the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. At the end of two decades of war with Napoleon, the British were finally free to visit continental Europe.
“It’s raining Englishmen”, wrote an amazed observer in Paris. Over the next two centuries, tourism shaped and re-fashioned not only British attitudes to abroad but life in the countries they visited. In their wake they brought hotels, campsites and caravan parks, new forms of food to cater for foreign tastes, sporting facilities, burgeoning souvenir industries, improved transport systems and infrastructures. The economies of fishing villages, alpine communities and rural backwaters became suddenly dependent on the seasonal influx of tourists from abroad. Tourism kept alive religious festivals and artisan crafts that would have long died without it.
