Tourism and Travel during the Cold War

The Iron Curtain was not an impenetrable divide and contacts between East and West took place regularly and on various levels throughout the Cold War. This book explores how the European tourist industry transcended the ideological fault lines and the communist states attracted an ever-increasing number of Western tourists. Based on extensive original research it examines the ramifications of tourism from sun-and-sea package tours to human rights travels in key Eastern European locations including East Berlin the Soviet Union Yugoslavia and Albania. The book’s analysis of the politics culture and history of tourism to the East offers important new perspectives on European tourism in the twentieth century.