Grand hotels had been a metropolitan phenomenon before they emerged in remote regions of the Alps between the s and the s. This essay explores how these semi-public spaces and early places of modernity engaged with alpine scenery and shaped the very industry of mountain tourism. It analyzes the relationship between elite tourism and the natural and social environment of the Alps.
The success of mountain grand hotels was tied to increasing industrialization and a new understanding of travel. Their thoughtful detachment from space, time, and society was an expression of a business as much as of social philosophy.
Mountain grand hotels were not only a key component of tourism infrastructure but also the bold expression of a presumptuous occupation of spaces set away for tourism.
Natural space had widely been turned into social space for visual and leisurely consumption, raising questions of authority, priority, appropriation, and imposition. It examines how the history of the mountain grand hotel conflates with the forces of nationalism, colonialism, and capitalism and showcases how these spaces reflect the socio-economic transformations that ultimately paved the way for mountain mass tourism.
Nineteenth-century contemporaries were amazed by their feudal luxury, exclusivity, and elegance, by their comfort, refinement, and impeccable service. The audacity of their architecture and the extravagance of their interiors and furnishings caused a sensation.
