Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
sources, such as the census, development plans, advertising, photographic archives and
other documentary sources in reconstructing the recreational and tourism environments in
coastal areas in the Victorian, Edwardian and subsequent periods. Specific phenomena,
such as the English holiday camp, examined by Ward and Hardy (1986), are also charted
using similar sources. An illustration of the importance of examining the historical issues
in the development of the coast as a tourism and leisure resource can be seen in the
following Insight.
INSIGHT: Promotion of the seaside resort: place-promotion strategies
Following the promotion of spa resorts in the UK, with the royal patronage of individual
sites such as by Queen Anne in 1702, the link with the coast was harnessed where spa
resorts were located in seaside locations. For example, Walvin (1978) highlighted how
many of the spa visitors also began to bathe in the sea and use the beach. 'By the 1730s
Brighton and Margate, along with Scarborough, had distinct seabathing seasons' (Ward
1998:31). But the rise of the coastal resorts did not simply mirror those of earlier spa
resorts. The seaside with its beach and sea were not in private ownership, providing
opportunities for different social classes to partake in the pleasures of the coast. As
Walton (1983:190-1) argued, 'At the seaside rich and poor, respectable and ungodly,
staid and rowdy, quiet and noisy not only rubbed shoulders…they also had to compete
for access to, and use of, recreational space'.
This reflects the improved access. For example, in the 1820s, London Steamers to
Thanet in Kent improved access as did the railway in the period after the 1840s,
particularly initially as day excursionists then as holidaymakers.
To encourage visitors, resorts in the nineteenth century engaged in place-promotion
strategies, building on the more crude methods which predate this period, such as
guidebooks, limited newspaper advertising and editorials in popular national journals
such as the
Gentleman's Magazine
(Brown 1988). One of the prime movers in place-
promotion were the railway companies. While some resorts produced guide-books to
promote their wares, the railway companies used newspapers, posters and handbills to
promote day excursions. This in turn also helped shape place-images and stereotypes of
individual resorts, where hedonism and cheap excursions were popular (e.g. Blackpool).
In contrast, private promoters of railway tours such as Thomas Cook adopted a more
educative approach to tours, aiming the products to specific niches rather than the mass
market.
Blackpool, among the UK resorts, entered the place promotion role after the
Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway's fare policy threatened its excursion and holiday
business from workingclass areas. By an Act of 1879, the town council levied a local tax
on the rates to undertake advertising at railway stations, attractions and amusements in
the town. Not only did the town's Advertising Committee start with illustrated brochures
aimed at the middle class market, but after 1881 Blackpool posters began to appear to
publicise attractions, the Blackpool Tower, constructed in 1894 and the illuminations,
introduced after 1912. In France, railway advertising on the Compagnie de l'Oust after
1886, saw colour posters introduced to advertise coastal destinations. Soon, individual
resorts also used this method of place advertising, despite the expense and print runs of
up to 6000 Due to the cost many posters in France were displayed for up to three years
