Traces of travel: The institutionalisation of tourism in the first half of the 20th century

Abstract

The history of travel in Portugal does not begin with the institutionalisation of tourism but this aspect constitutes one of its most singular features. The progressive ascendancy of a policy that promoted the country as a tourist destination was inscribed within the creation of the first institutions of Portuguese culture and society. The Sociedade de Propaganda de Portugal (1906), then the Repartição de Turismo and its Tourism Council (1911), the Sociedade de Propaganda Nacional (1939) and finally the Secretariado Nacional Informação (1944) were the institutions that oversaw tourism during the first half of the twentieth century. At the same time, the publication of specialty magazines and participation in international exhibitions not only promoted Portugal in the Euro-American geography but also designed the new postcard of the nation that "gave worlds to the world".