Tourism and Political Change in Franco’s Spain

Abstract

Few cases illustrate the potency of tourism as a form of international relations better than the experience of Franco’s Spain. Historically shunned by all but the most intrepid travellers, Spain became a major hub of postwar European leisure, absorbing a massive current of vacationers in search of seaside pleasures and an escape from staid routine. The consequences for Spain were at once economic, cultural, and political. Foreign tourists strengthened the ostracized regime, providing by the mid-1950s both its largest source of foreign currency and compelling evidence of its acceptance by democratic Europe. They also posed challenges for the Franco regime and its foundational principles of moral and economic autarky. Far the greatest draw were the popular seaside resorts of the Mediterranean littoral, where resentment of Madrid’s authority was generally higher. Local service economies soon became tied to international commercial networks and operated largely outside the official National-Corporatist structure. The postwar tourist boom reinforced the Franco dictatorship’s sovereignty while simultaneously triggering significant institutional and cultural transformation. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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