Grasping and understanding the actors of a regional tourism system: the inputs of the Biolemano biographical database (Lake Geneva region, 1852-1914)

ABSTRACT This article highlights the contributions of a biographical database called ‘Biolemano’, which contains information on 1761 tourism players in the Franco-Swiss region of Lake Geneva between 1852 and 1914. The result of more than ten years of research conducted at the University of Lausanne (Switzerland), this digital tool offers innovative research perspectives in the history of tourism by making it possible to grasp the complexity of a regional tourism system in its entirety. The analysis focuses on the collective and individual actors of the three main components of the tourism offer, namely accommodation, transport and entertainment. It reveals the importance of protagonists who have remained in the shadows until now, such as bankers, traders, lawyers and engineers. Another objective is to initiate a more global reflection on the functioning of a regional tourism system by questioning the endogenous or exogenous dominance of the development model. In the end, the study allows us to understand some reasons for the success of regional tourism, which flourished in an impressive way during the Belle Epoque.