“War and Tourism” in the conflict of the First World War

A Touriseum conference at Trauttmansdorff Castle

07/11/2013 Conference
South Tyrol Museum of Tourism

7-9 November 2013

Contributors from Italy, Austria, Germany, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia were discussing the impact of the First World War on the development of tourism in the Alpine regions.

For South Tyrol, the First World War and its consequences meant a radical break with the past. The land south of the Brenner Pass, previously the “southern balcony of the Habsburg Empire”, was now the northernmost province of Italy. With the entry of Italy into the conflict in 1915, Tyrol was transformed from a recreational area into a theatre of war: from the Ortler to the Sextner Dolomites, what had been favoured destinations among tourists and mountaineers were suddenly lined with barbed wire and military barracks. Tourism was devastated as hotels, restaurants and mountain huts rapidly emptied. Hotels and pensions were assigned to officers and in some cases soldiers as accommodation, while the larger hotels were converted into military hospitals. For hoteliers and innkeepers with establishments in the line of fire, the work of decades was ruined overnight.

The scientific conference is intended as preparation, and expansion of the perspectives, for a special exhibition in 2015 at the Touriseum with the main topic of “War and Tourism”.

Conference languages: the conference languages will be German and Italian, with simultaneous interpretation provided.

Scientific aspects: Gunda Barth-Scalmani (University of Innsbruck) and Andrea Leonardi (University of Trento)

Organisational aspects: Patrick Gasser (Touriseum)

The conference proceedings

“War and Tourism” in the conflict of the First World War 

 Available in German/Italian with English abstracts.