Tourism Diplomacy in Cold War Europe: Symbolic Gestures, Cultural Exchange and Human Rights

Abstract

The post-war boom in international travel made tourism a question for international diplomacy. Focusing on the growth of bilateral tourism agreements during the Cold War, this article shows how the meaning of tourism was negotiated by and between governments on either side of the East–West divide. While previous research on tourism in the Cold War has focused on the threat tourist traffic posed to national security in socialist states, the present study also considers the dilemmas it presented to liberal democracies. The article analyses the intersections of tourism with issues of foreign trade, cultural exchange and human contacts, which shaped the contestations over tourism throughout the Cold War.