Educating Greece in modernity: post-war tourism and western politics: Fid-Bau Portal

Educating Greece in modernity: post-war tourism and western politics

Alifragkis, Stavros / Athanassiou, Emilia

Economic progress in post-war, post-civil-war Greece, kick-started by the Marshall Plan and maintained by the rapid growth of tourism, was deemed a vital pre-condition for the country's modernisation. In 1951, the Government re-launched the National Tourism Organisation to attract foreign visitors and invigorate domestic tourism among the rising middle class. The organisation carried out a building programme for a network of leisure hotspots near archaeological sites, places of natural beauty and along major motoring routes. The state-run Xenia chain, comprising hotels, motels, travel stops, pavilions, organised beaches and holiday camps, spearheaded the Government's policy for the modernisation of leisure infrastructure, setting the standards for all ensuing private initiatives. This paper underlines the intertwining of western-oriented politics, modernist architecture and newly introduced cultures of leisure in the construction of the image of modern Greece. Cold-war politics recognised Greece's prosperity as a barrier against communist expansion. Tourism thus reweaved the country's war-torn social fabric, by spurring economic growth and educating the emerging urban middle-class about modern life. The image of post-war Greece as an ideal tourist destination was promoted by capitalising on the enduring construct of continuity with the past and a newly introduced affiliation with Western modernity and Americanism in particular.