Every Poster Tells A Tourism Story

It mystifies me why more is not made of an aspect of Mallorcan and Spanish history that is, for many people, more relevant and more real than much of the history that tourism bodies would prefer to shove down people's throats. Indeed, the tourism bodies are missing a trick, because they are sitting on a vast repository of documentation and images that is a record of the very thing they are concerned with and is what intrigues any number of visitors - tourism itself and its history.

In 1985 the Institute of Touristic Studies (part of the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce) was established. Its centre of documentation has well over 100,000 documents of various types. Some can be accessed via the internet or, if you happen to be in Madrid, can be seen by visiting the centre (naturally enough, only ever open in the mornings; don't let's get too carried away with convenience to the public).

The use of the word document suggests something rather dry. Many of the documents are just that, but not all. Nothing like all, as they include brochures, postcards, photos and posters.

Posters have a particular status in local culture. For some fiestas, they seem more important than the fiestas themselves. Their presentation are events in their own right, and sometimes - for the right and wrong reasons - they become news, as with the poster for the final bullfight in Barcelona (the right reason because it was so highly prized) and for Palma's most recent San Sebastià fiesta (the wrong reason because the design was plagiarised).

Posters for tourism have a long history, and not just in Spain. They were once, of course, a means of promotion for British seaside resorts, produced by the old "Big Four" regional rail companies and then the nationalised British Railways.

Spanish tourism, by comparison with that to Bridlington or Brighton, is more recent, and the Institute's astonishing collection of posters covers the second half of the last century. The golden age for the tourism poster, though, was from 1960 to 1980.

One of the first posters in the collection, dating from 1961, suggests that Spanish tourism authorities hadn't quite got the hang of what was to make Spain a mass tourism destination. A "Castilian Landscape", it shows a rainbow tumbling from a sky of blue clouds into the horizon of a wheat field.

A year later, however, and the penny has started to drop. Though the posters were all designed to promote Spain (in different languages), images of different parts of the country were used, and so Mallorca, and its beach tourism, features for the first time. A poster in French has a scene of the beach at Formentor. Sunshades made from reeds shield sunbathers, two boats and what looks like a water-skier are in the sea, pines (symbolic of the area) encroach on either side of the foreground. It looks remarkably contemporary; or maybe nothing has really changed.

The choice of Formentor, exclusive then and still exclusive, does perhaps hint at the type of tourism that was being mainly hoped for. In the same year, there is a poster for Torremolinos. Not of what you might expect, but of its golf course. Benidorm appears for the first time in 1966, or at least the name appears; you don't see any of the resort, just some sail boats on a beach.

As the 1960s progress, you can trace how widely promotion was being conducted. Posters are produced for exhibitions across Europe and even in New York. Historic sites vie with the image of the bullfight and with those of resorts, and Mallorca shows off a second - Cala San Vicente with the iconic shot of the Cavall Bernat horse promontory across the Cala Molins.

The "alternative" tourism of the current day is revealed to be not quite so alternative or new. In addition to the likes of golf, gastronomy appears in 1967; a rustic bodega with an Iberian ham very much in evidence. But by now, mass tourism is being admitted to, and it is Torremolinos again, this time with a beach scene, not packed with people, but in far greater numbers than had been on Formentor beach.

I could go on, but you should see for yourselves. The collection is fascinating and it is made more fascinating because the posters represent images and resorts which mean something, which is the point of much Mallorcan and Spanish tourism history - it is history within people's own lifetimes. And this is why more should be made of it.

To see the posters, go to http://www.iet.tourspain.es. There is an English section, and you need to click on "documentary funds", then "catalogues search" and you will come to a list which includes "tourist posters". Type in "España" where it says "words" in the first box, then put in the dates 1960-1980 and opt for dates ascending or descending.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.