1Although the devastating effect of the First World War on the Swiss tourism industry – and European tourism in general¹ – is widely repeated², there is no deep analysis of how the Swiss tourism industry behaved. What happened with the tourism infrastructure like the hotels during the war ? Who stayed in the hotels : tourists, internees, army personnel ? How did the regional dispersion of the arrivals look like ? While this question about the hotel infrastructure interests in the immediate war years between 1914 and 1918, a focus in the long run suggests itself. Which consequences did WWI have on tourism professionals in Switzerland, in particular on hoteliers ? How did hoteliers adapt to and cope with the new situation ? How did they anticipate the post-war period ? How did this anticipation look like exactly ? This temporally different aspects structure this chapter.

In the short run : A shock and a smooth revitalization

2Basically, wars can affect tourism negatively and positively, as Walton shows, but the relation war-tourism deserves a very high alertness, because « [o]nly in the extreme cases […] there [are] obvious simple answers »³. In Switzerland, the numbers of the arrivals halves between 1913 and 1915⁴. Afterwards, they revitalise smoothly reaching approximately two third of the pre-war level in 1918, and a perceptible growth until the pre-war level only appeares some years after the war⁵.

3This smooth revitalization arises some questions : who are those peope living in the hotels during WWI ? Basically, some guests, who do not (manage to) go home after the outbreak of the war, are forced to stay in the hotel, other hotels are turned into hospitals or military control centers due to their good communication facilities (telephones, electricity, gas, etc.)⁶. In Italy and Switzerland, hotels serve as places for (peace) negotiations, which may have heightened the numbers of arrivals⁷. From point of view of the countries of origin, the sharp fall and relative relaxation after 1915 do not change the importance of a given country of origin : the arrivals of the Germans, Britons, North Americans and the French equally fall and revitalize smoothly afterwards⁸⁸. Moreover, the Swiss become the largest group of guests in 1914, and have been holding this position ever since⁹. It is highly probable therefore, that those tourists who arrive in the Swiss hotels during WWI, stem from Switzerland itself.

4In absolute numbers, the overall arrivals of the international and domestic tourists sum up to some 4,5 million arrivals in Swiss hotels and spa houses in 1912, roughly some 1,7 million in 1915 and approximately some 2,3 million arrivals per year in 1917 and 1918¹⁰. In the same period (1916-1918), Switzerland receives between 12 000 and 67 726 internees – that are foreign civil and military persons who were accomodated in camps administered by the Swiss army¹¹. Internees in Switzerland were considered as « prisonniers de guerre malades ou blessés » and were subject to the military jurisdiction¹². These persons stay in Swiss cities and health resorts with particularly good air in the mountains of the cantons of Vaud, Valais, Berne, Zug, Neuchâtel as well as in Davos¹³. All of these regions are known as tourist destinations at the time, but the sheer number of the internees makes clear that the Swiss hotels are not overcrowded by internees. To which extent the Swiss army stays in the Swiss hotels waits for further clarification¹⁴.

5A close look on the available¹⁵ data on people staying in hotels during WWI reveals some interesting, quantitative insights. Firstly, in point of view of arrivals, the outbreak of the war is felt everywhere, that is in all tourist destinations and cities.

6Secondly, the numbers of the arrivals revitalize in most of the cities after 1915, Zurich, Berne and Basel obviously receiving the most guests. The arrivals in chosen cities of Switzerland show interesting facts : the closing of the border hits Basel to a disproportionately large extent because Basel has been a central entrance to Switzerland prior to the war. Saint-Gallen experiences an increase of the numbers of arrivals to the amount of some 50 percent roughly during the war-years¹⁶. Similarly, Zurich holds the same amount of arrivals in 1914 and in 1918, although the shock of the outbreak of the war decreases the numbers of arrivals to the amount of one fourth, but, in 1917, this number even tops the numbers of 191417 ! Meanwhile, the mountainous tourist destinations, in particular in the Grisons, also witness a modest revitalization after 1915, yet the remote destinations have never received those amounts of guests as the cities have done. In fact, the data available suggest that, during First World War, hotels receive less guests, the remoter they are. This does not astonish given the energetic crisis which makes coal as the main fuel more expensive. The remote tourist destinations are less accessible because the ticket prices increase while the railway companies offer fewer connections in a shorter time, that is only on working days anymore18.

7Thirdly, the number of arrivals smoothly levelled off in 1917 and 1918 in most of the cities and destinations. Tourism suffers not only from the modest demand, but also from the restrictions on fuels and food¹⁹. The food and energetic situation of Switzerland worsens in 1917 notably, when several factors coincide : the below average potato harvest of 1916, the qualitatively and quantitatively bad grass for feeding the livestock, and the falling cereals stocks which base on a crop failure in 1916 and the English blockade²⁰. Due to their economic importance, a lot of industries are taken under control by the national government during the First World War. The result, the so called « Vollmachtenregime » (powers) – which finds a specification in the clearing system of the 1930s –, leads to a considerable extension of the federal administration²¹.

Arrivals in Swiss hotels in tourist destinations and cities, 1912-1922 (in 1 000)

8The regional dispersion of the arrivals in Swiss hotels shows that the overwhelming part of the hotel guests stayed in the cities. In contrast to WWII, Switzerland interned some 12 000-67 726 persons which only equals some 0,2-1 percent of the arrivals between 1916 and 1918²². Thus, the guests in the hotels might be some army personnel or internees, but a considerable part of the arrivals must have been tourists – to wit mainly Swiss tourists ! Yet, foreign guests continue to stay in the hotels. The different nationalities of the guests remain during WWI in comparison with the years prior to the war²³. Broadly speaking, the hotel infrastructure remains and is not transferred into hospitals during WWI on a large scale. Those internees who stay in Switzerland, however, do live in hotels – or in existing hospitals²⁴. Like in Spain and France, tourist activity does not disappear fully²⁵, but the war destroys the luxurious tourism of the 19^th century. As a consequence, tourism professionals try to find new ways of attracting guests – and hope for the past to come again. Such a backward orientation is persistent in Switzerland’s tourism industry in the 1920s²⁶ . Yet, an idea about a Swiss national tourist office (NTO), which originates in 1910, turns into a vehicle during the war, which helps the Swiss tourism industry to anticipate the post-war time.

In the long run : Tourism professionals’ anticipation of the post-war time in the form of national tourist offices (NTOs)

Switzerland

9Tourism professionals’ anticipation of the post-war period is expressed in the establishment of national tourist offices in different European countries. France reorganizes its NTO in 1916, Switzerland opens its NTO in 1917, Italy in 1918-1919²⁷. What does this development base on ?

10Tourism evolves into one of the most important export branches of Switzerland from 1850 onwards, as the nominal value added from tourism increases from 1,2 % to 5 % of GDP between 1851 and 1913²⁸. In the Lake Geneva Region, tourism developes into an economic leading sector and is highly capitalized²⁹. On the same time, in some contemporary hoteliers’ opinion, the international as well as the national competition increases. In fact, the hotel industry witnesses falling returns on investments around 1910, but the hoteliers do not possess extensive statistical data to undermine this opinion. When the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and France open their national tourist offices in 1908 and 1910 respectively, the Swiss tourism industry calls for a Swiss NTO in 1911, which would care about a reliable statistical base and a common marketing of Switzerland abroad (and at home). In an « époque qui est le triomphe de la publicité et de la réclame »³⁰ as a temporary put it, the expenses for a campaign can be quite large, yet their effect is not clear. The market for attention and publicity is highly competitive and coined by hard concurrence by cheating advertising companies at the same time³¹. A single company’s campaign can easily prove insufficient due to the sheer extension of the market.

11A cooperation between the different tourism professionals like hoteliers, railway companies, chambers of commerce, etc., however, is only successfull when some signs of economic cooling appear around 1910. It is noteworthy that the successful cooperation takes place in the field of marketing. In 1911, Alexandre Emery and Alexander Seiler, two well-known and highly influential hoteliers and politicians, submit a parliamentary procedural request for a Swiss NTO. Within six years, the federal administration and the hoteliers’ and local tourist offices’ lobby organizations prepare the foundation of Switzerland’s first national tourist office, called « Schweizerische Zentrale für Verkehrsförderung » (SVZ)³². This institution should market Switzerland abroad and at home, lobby, generate a reliable statistical base about tourism in Switzerland and apply the new, statistically based technique of selling, in today’s word marketing. An important quality of the SVZ is its centralizing function : it centralizes not only hoteliers, railway companies, public bodies like municipalities (tourist destinations) and cantons, as well as producers of luxury goods (which profit from the tourists’ spending), but also Switzerland’s different regions, in particular the French, Italian and German-speaking parts of Switzerland. This is all the more important as, during WWI, Switzerland increasingly drifts apart in cultural, social and economic terms (orientation towards France or Germany, bourgeoisie vs. working class, farmers vs. employees). As a consequence, the first Swiss NTO mediates between the country’s (tourist) regions, centralizes the efforts of tourist professionals who have marketed themselves hitherto, and integrates the confederation as a financier. WWI does not set off, but it shows the need of the putting into practice of the idea of a NTO. This implies, that since then, the Swiss tourism industry has uphold lively relations with the confederation. Both, the Swiss tourism industry and the confederation are interested in each other as the confederation’s argumentation in favour of the establishment of the SVZ in 1917 shows.

12When the falling returns on investments due to a too powerful domestic competition and the drop in the number of guests during the war threaten the hotel industry, the confederation fears a domino effect throughout the whole Swiss economy due to tourism’s high interconnectedness with other economic branches. Basing on its power, tourism is seen by the Swiss government as a means to reconstruct the country’s economy after the war. This is an important reason why the confederation is ready to partially finance a NTO in 1917 : tourism’s ability to minimize the damages of the war in a post-war time. In this respect, the contribution to the SVZ is an investment into the future development of the Swiss economy from point of view of the confederation. This justifies a financial engagement in the fourth year of the First World War, when the federal administration is busy with providing the Swiss population with sufficient coal, milk, cereals and potatoes. The original idea of a NTO is thereby turned into an anticipation measure for the post-war time. It is noteworthy that the Swiss tourism industry expects the confederation to be part of this measure. As a broader focus reveals, such an integration of the state in tourism is not limited to Switzerland.

Allied countries : Inter-allied congress in Monte-Carlo

13National governments start to be involved in tourism prior to and during the war, too, as the establishments of the Austro-Hungarian, French and Italian NTOs show³³. In particular, European governments anticipate the post-war time by organizing an inter-allied conference on thermal cure destinations (1915-1920).

14The consciousness about the importance of tourism for a nation state in the form of a NTO becomes omnipresent with the staying away of large parts of the former guests during the war. Pietro Chabert, a contemporary French counsellor for foreign trade, starts to plan an inter-allied tourism congress in 1915³⁴. The main purpose is to find a unity between the Allies in order to face the Austro-German competition in the field of spas and thermal cure destinations³⁵ . The practical purpose is of economic nature, precisely « di fare rientrare in Europa parte delle ingenti somme spese per i bisogni della guerra »³⁶. After years of preparation, the congress takes place in Monte-Carlo in April 1920³⁷ and is divided in six subcongresses, each dedicated to a special subject : hydrology/physiotherapy, hygiene/climatology, thalassotherapy, spas/thermal destinations, organization of the high mountains, and, finally, tourism³⁸. The congress dedicated to tourism should stabilize an inter-allied tourist unity in general, the organization of the battlefield tourism in particular, and finally increase the mutual visits to the spas and thereby increase the volume of traffic³⁹. The real discussion, however, turns around how a spa and thermal cure destination should be organized, as the touristic organization is considered crucial in order to give an economic value to these destinations ⁴⁰. Thus, the organization of tourism – the term summarizes the collaboration of transport companies, hoteliers, local tourist offices, Touring Clubs, and/or chambers of commerce – is a central topic in Europe in the second half of the 1910s. As a consequence, in most of the European countries, the nation state becomes a full or partial financier of the country’s NTO⁴¹.

15The establishment of the Austro-Hungarian, French, Swiss and Italian national tourist office between 1908 and 1918 and the inter-allied congress on the organization of tourism show that one of the anticipation measures by tourism professionals consists of a collaboration with the state. This is not to say that tourism professionals lose their independence. But the devastation of tourism in Switzerland during the First World War delivers the proof and necessity for what some Swiss tourism professionals – well-known hoteliers – have started thinking about prior to the war : a central institution – a NTO – which should coordinate the marketing efforts of the different Swiss tourism professionals like hoteliers, transport companies, tourist destinations, etc., and which the nation state should be part of. In the case of Switzerland, the NTO is expected to mediate between the country’s tourist regions and to collect statistical data about tourism primarily. In the tourism professionals’ opinion, only a reliable statistical base can help to lobby for the sake of the Swiss tourism industry, an export branch which has developed into an important economic sector prior to WWI – in the Lake Geneva Region, tourism even evolves into a leading sector of the economy⁴².

16This economic importance of tourism is effectively broken with the outbreak of WWI. The drop in the number of arrivals in 1914 is felt in Swiss cities and tourist destinations heavily, but the number of arrivals in hotels recovers from 1915 onwards. Like in Spain (Compostela) and France (Brittany)⁴³, tourism does not ease fully in Switzerland, but the composition of the guests changes. In 1914, the Swiss become the largest group of guests in 1914 and have been holding this position ever since⁴⁴. The number of internees in Swiss hotels is limited to 0,2-1 % of the total of arrivals between 1916 and 1918 and the hotels receive less guests, the remoter they are. Finally, the Swiss hotel and sanatoria infrastructure broadly holds its function and is not transferred into hospitals on a large scale, so that the Swiss tourism industry must hold out under the stress and content itself with the modest tourist activity. Meanwhile, the Swiss tourism professionals put into practice their idea of a Swiss NTO in collaboration with the federal administration, so that Switzerland gets its NTO in the fourth year of war as an expression of the anticipation of the post-war time.