Tourism and political economy for the Italian colonies during the interwar years

Abstract

The article analyzes the policy conducted by the Italian authorities to expand tourism activity in the north and the Horn of Africa and in some areas of the Dodecanese. In April 1939 Italy invaded Albania, that is, a few months before the outbreak of the Second World War, although Italian investments in this country came from behind. ENIT, the body responsible for tourism in Italy, was not only in this effort, but other agents such as the Touring Club, for example, also played a fundamental role in promoting tourism in these areas. Mariotti himself, already mentioned and who worked at ENIT, designed an entire program for the promotion of tourism in the colonies. In this sense, we must not forget that we are in a moment of great nationalist exaltation, on the one hand, and of expansion of tourist activity, as an economic activity and as a booming social practice, on the other. If at the beginning of the twentieth century it had been a minority practice, a period of disclosure began
in the 1920s. In this sense, the fascist regime has tried to convince more citizens to join this practice thanks to the so-called National Work of Dopolavoro. This document examines some unpublished aspects of tourism for the Italian colonies (compared to that adopted by other more important European colonial models) during the years between the two wars of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in some ENIT (Italian Tourist Board) implemented for the promotion and development of colonial territories.