Club Méditerranée in Francoist Spain: tourism, Architecture, and countercultural ideals

Abstract

This article examines the emergence of organised foreign mass tourism in Spain, focusing on the introduction of the French company Club Méditerranée. In 1950, Club Méditerranée built its first tent resort in Mallorca and in 1962 established the first brick resort in Cadaqués, in Costa Brava. Under the Franco dictatorship, from the 1960s onwards, Spain not only developed foreign mass tourism targeted at the working classes but also opened its doors to an alternative sector of tourism. This sector, primarily explored by the young bourgeoisie, sought to liberate itself from the rigid norms imposed by a society governed by conventional values. The early experiences of Club Méditerranée in Spain reflect this shift in the perception of holidays as moments of liberation and compensation from the routines of everyday consumerism. This context reveals an aversion to mass consumption, the resort using various practices and strategies to distinguish itself through extra-beach activities. The article aims to demonstrate that in Spain during the 1950s and 1960s, the introduction of mass tourism was not only a step towards modernity and national identity construction, but also an entry point for contracultural thought, which was of significant concern to the political regime