Cultural Tourism

Cultural tourism can be traced back to the Grand Tour, beginning with the travel of wealthy, young Englishmen through France and Italy for a rite of passage to learn about art history and antiquities. This trend of traveling in order to gain both a liberal education and cultural capital grew in popularity from the 1660s until the 1840s, when mass railway and steamship technologies developed and Thomas Cook devised packaged tours affordable to the middle class. Over this period, those participating in the Grand Tour came to include additional well-to-do northern Europeans, visitors from the United States and South America, and women. In this light, cultural tourism originated with the concept of culture with a capital “C.” In other words, participants in the Grand Tour ...