Tourism in South Tyrol from 1961 to 1983

The 1960s and 1970s marked an epochal turning point for South Tyrol in many respects: the elaboration and adoption of the South Tyrol Package laid the foundation for the Second Statute of Autonomy in 1972; at the same time, tourism advanced to become a pacemaker industry in those years, it created new jobs, brought investment into the region and brought about a new consumer culture. It created integration and separation, led to ruptures, offered unimagined opportunities, and shaped mentality and identity. In 1960 South Tyrol counted 3.7 million overnight stays, in 1980 it was already 17 million.

The research project of the Touriseum aims to critically illuminate these years of social awakening and the metamorphosis of South Tyrol's economic and cultural life, and to explore how the contact between the German-Austrian economic miracle and Italy's "miracolo economico" in the "hinge region" of South Tyrol led to a retarded boom and an increase in prosperity for broad sections of the population.