Hopefully you will recall that in Topic 1 we talked about the multidisciplinary nature of tourism studies. Well, we shall be drawing upon the discipline of history in this topic to help us understand how tourism has emerged, developed, remained the same or changed over a period of several thousand years. Another useful ‘sub-discipline’ is historical geography, that branch of human geography that explores changes to human landscapes over time.

Some questions to think about for this topic:

• How can a historical ‘disciplinary lens’ be applied to tourism and why?
• What can we gain from a historical analysis of tourism?
• How similar is tourism as we know it today in the 21^st century to Pre-Modern tourism?
• Can you identify some similarities and differences between contemporary tourism and tourism from the past few thousand years?

These are some questions that I would like you to think about while you are exploring this topic. OK, so now begin by reading Chapter 3 from the textbook and making notes from that chapter based on the chapter’s Learning Objectives.

Dividing time into different historical phases

One way of analysing the history of tourism is to recognise different historical phases through which tourism has passed. The textbook recognises:

• Premodern Tourism
• Modern Tourism.

It divides up modern tourism into Early Modern and Contemporary Tourism.

Make sure that you understand what the characteristics of tourism were in each of these phases.

How do we know what the history of tourism is? What evidence is used?

Historians of travel and tourism search out all kinds of evidence in their quest to better understand the history of tourism. Such evidence includes visual depictions of destinations and tourism (paintings, sketches, etchings, photographs, postcards), textual sources such as letters, government documents, novels, journal and magazine articles, personal diaries, guidebooks, pamphlets and other tourism marketing collateral, and verbal sources such as interviews and oral histories. In addition, historians and historical geographers are skilled in ‘reading’ the landscape, looking for evidence still in existence (or extant) in villages, towns, cities and the rural landscape. The historical record is always imperfect of course and some evidence is able to last longer and in a better preserved state than others.

History of Koala Tourism

I am currently working on a research project examining the ways by which koalas have become connected with tourism, how they are inter-meshed with the tourism economy. One of my research objectives is to understand the history of koalas in captivity in Australia and overseas. I want to find out in what year the first koala was exhibited at a zoo, what zoo that was, and when did koalas become common in zoos and wildlife parks. Another research objective is to establish when images of koalas were being used to promote Australia on postcards and what sort of images have been used. How am I finding information to help me address this research question relating to the history of koalas in tourism?

This kind of historical research is made sooooo much easier these days when so many collections of material have been digitised and made available online. So, I am searching the Trove database which is owned and managed by the National Library of Australia. This contains digitised newspapers dating back to the beginning of the 1800s. I just have to use search terms like <koala>, <zoo> etc. to find newspaper articles that feature stories on koalas. I am also contacting the major zoos such as Taronga Zoo in Sydney and Melbourne Zoo by email. They will have their own archives which they can search on my behalf.

For postcards, I have searched what is currently on sale on eBay (which provided me with a sample of 132 postcards) and I will also search the postcard collections of the State Libraries of NSW, Qld and Victoria. I will also use Google Images and search for <koala postcards> that way as well.

In case you were wondering, the earliest postcard I could find that depicted a koala was sent to someone in 1903. Postcards are often difficult to date because most don’t include the year that they were produced, so I have to rely on ‘secondary’ dates such as the date that the postcard was date stamped when it had been sent to a person through the postal service. So, while I can be certain that the postcard was in existence in 1903, it may have been produced earlier than that.

This is a koala postcard that I think was produced in the 1950s, I’m still yet to establish a date for this one. Often koalas were arranged in groups in photos for postcards (the most I have seen on a postcard was 12 would you believe), which of course is completely unrealistic, given that koalas live quite solitary lives. However, koalas made excellent photographic subjects because they can be easily arranged and stay where they are put.

What kind of evidence do you think tourism historians have used to understand the history of ancient Roman tourism?

The growth of Contemporary Tourism

We’ve seen how tourism has developed over time, but let’s now take a closer look at the factors that have been influential in driving contemporary tourism, and the textbook describes ‘contemporary tourism’ as being from the 1950s onwards.

What are the factors that have produced the incredible rate of tourism growth that we have experienced in Australia and globally? And what do we measure to understand ‘tourism growth’?

The growth in tourism can be measured by:

• counting the number of international arrivals per year (but what does ‘international arrival’ mean? Does it include tourists who make multiple trips?)
• counting the number of domestic trips taken each year within a country
• estimating the amount of money tourists spend each year
• estimating the amount of total income that is generated by the tourism industry each year.

Make sure you have a good understanding of each of the factors given in the textbook:

• economic factors – make sure you understand the Tourism Participation Sequence Model developed by Burton (1995)
• social factors
• demographic factors
• transportation and other technology factors
• political factors.

A study of the history of tourism allows us to understand and appreciate that many of the elements that we consider as ‘normal’ and ‘everyday’ aspects of going away on a holiday (such as the social value of having a holiday; having four weeks paid leave; long weekends; railways; private motor vehicle ownership; cheap air travel; guesthouses, motels, hotels and, more recently, online platforms such as AirBnB; beach towels; portable BBQs and the like – all of these have a history and entered into the Australian tourism experience at particular times and in particular social, cultural and political contexts.

So this is one of the things you need to understand: the history of tourism and all the many developments that have occurred along the way is always embedded in social, cultural and political contexts, systems, processes and practices.

Motels would never have prospered without the construction of highways and the domination of the private car; hotels would never have developed as important accommodation properties in most destinations without the development of railway lines (think about it – if you are in Australia take a look at where some of the old historical hotels are in your area, chances are you will find them quite close to railway stations).

And now, what about if we look at the factors driving the growth of tourism in Australia over the past 19 years of the 21^st century?

Are there any particular factors other than the ones mentioned above that you think could be helping to accelerate the rate of tourism?