This edited collection explores the pivotal role of the hotel industry in building Western Europe’s tourism economy during the 20th century.The book brings together ten contributions focused on the same period, 1900-1970, to offer comparative perspectives from across the region including Italy, Switzerland, France, Spain and Britain.

Chapter 1.Tourism, hotel industry and banking development : the Lake Geneva case at the beginning of the 20th Century, by Cédric Humair - University of Lausanne (Switzerland).- Chapter 2. Hotels during Wartime and Transitions to Peace: Resilience and Repurposing in Britain, 1914-1922, by Kevin James - University of Guelph (Canada).- Chapter 3. A grand hôtel between the liberal age and fascism in Italy: the Grand Hôtel du Vésuve in Naples, by Annunziata Berrino - Federico II University of Naples (Italy).- Chapter 4. Relations between companies and the State in the first third of 20th century in Spain. The hotel industry case, by Carlos Larrinaga – University of Granada (Spain).- Chapter 5. The hotel offer in the province of Malaga (Spain) between 1900 and 1936, by Marta Luque & Víctor M. Heredia – University of Malaga (Spain).- Chapter 6. The economy of hospitality in Italy. Hotel and accommodation system in Rome before the Second World War, by Donatella Strangio & Marco Teodori - Sapienza University of Rome (Italy).- Chapter 7. The origins of the public hotel chain “Paradores de Turismo de España”, 1926-1936, by Carmelo Pellejero - University of Malaga (Spain).- Chapter 8. Brittany hotel industry and Second Word War: total crisis, global opportunism (1940-1952), by Yves-Marie Evanno - Catholic University of the Western, South Brittany, UCO-BS, France) and Johan Vincent - ESTHUA, University of Angers, France).- Chapter 9. State intervention in the Swiss hospitality industry: from the end of the laissez-faire to the beginnings of neoliberalism (1915-1967), by Mathieu Narindal - Université de Neuchâtel (Switzerland).- Chapter 10. Hotel industry and the commodification of mountain nature. Private initiative and tourist planning in the Pyrenees (1900s-1970s), by Steve Hagimont - Versailles Saint-Quentin University (France).- Chapter.11 Conclusion - Carlos Larrinaga and Donatella Strangio.

This edited collection explores the pivotal role of the hotel industry in building Western Europe’s tourism economy during the 20th century.The book brings together ten contributions focused on the same period, 1900-1970, to offer comparative perspectives from across the region including Italy, Switzerland, France, Spain and Britain. Drawing on historical case studies, chapters illuminate the different factors linking hotels and the broader tourism system including interventions of the public authorities and the State, the importance of private involvement, commercial strategies, the medium-term development of private hotels, hotel entrepreneurship, and the impact of economic crises and wars. By placing differing national approaches taken to the growth of the hotel industry in comparison, the book aims to fill a gap in the historiography of European hospitality and shed light on the wider impact of hotels and tourism on economic development at both a national and regional level. It will be of interest to a range of scholars, including in economic and business history, tourism studies, the history of tourism management, and social history.Carlos Larrinaga is Reader in Economic History at the University of Granada, Andalusia, Spain. His research is in the history of tourism, railways in the 19th century and the service sector. He has undertaken research in several stays at Bordeaux-Montaigne University and at Aberystwyth University. He leads the project ‘Tourism in Spain in the first third of the 20th century: characteristics and evolution of an economic activity and a social practice in comparative perspective’, funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of the Government of Spain and European Regional Development Fund.Donatella Strangio is Full Professor of Economic History at Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. She has been Director of Masters program in Business Management at Sapienza University of Rome. She is a researcher of the project ‘Tourism in Spain in the first third of the 20th century: characteristics and evolution of an economic activity and a social practice in comparative perspective’, funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of the Government of Spain and European Regional Development Fund.

Fills a gap in the literature on the history of hotels by integrating wider economic and business implications Brings together comparative perspectives on the role of tourism in economic development in the 20th century Presents a detailed economic history of the growth of the hotel industry in Europe and its impact on tourism