From sightseeing to sunbathing: Changing traditions in Swedish package tours from edification by bus to relaxation by airplane in the 1950s and 1960s

The changing notions of tourism are analyzed by example of Swedish package tours in the 1950s and 1960s, when the dominant means of transportation for package tours changed from buses to airplanes. Simultaneously, Swedish mass tourism developed explosively so that the package tour markets of Scandinavia in the mid-1960s were the largest per capita in Europe. While package tours by bus, dominating from the interwar period until the 1960s, implied city sightseeing and visits to cultural landmarks, package tours by airplanes brought focus on sunbathing on beaches and salt-water swimming. This transformation of purpose of the package tours from peregrination to leisure life hinged on new means of transportation making it possible for tourism to find additional and more varied raisons d'tre in comparison to the traditional view of it as a romantic escape from the conditions of modern society.