By Josep Sauret.

At the turn of the twentieth century, the European upper classes used to follow the romantic tradition of traveling toknow the natural landscapes and the works of art from the ancient times. Other reasons were to improve their health at spas and to see the new technological developments on show at the thematic and Universal exhibitions (1). This may be considered as the birth of what was later called tourism, which considerably increased with the appearance of the steamers and the railway at first and the motorcar later on.

These ideas from the more advanced European countries arrived to Spain with a certain delay and were applied under Spanish own concepts, such as Regenerationism, which appeared after the defeat in the Hispano-American war of 1898 and the subsequent national catharsis.

In this line, during the liberal government presided by Montero Ríos, the National Commission for Tourism Promotion was created in 1905 (2) to develop tourism nationwide. A lot of activities were assigned to this Commission but, as Gonzalez Morales wrote:

Although the creation of the National Commission was a first step to involve the Spanish government in this emerging sector, its
importance has been magnified. The Commission activity was
ephemeral and symbolic and became lethargic as a
consequence of the fall of the government that had created it;
although the Commission was not dissolved, no activities were developed. (3)

However, the germ produced results and in 1906 (4) a Royal Order was issued to encourage townships to create permanent commissions to attract visitors.

Under this patronage, a Spanish-French Exhibition was organized in Zaragoza (from 1st May to 31st October 1908) bythe city council and the provincial government, with the support of the state government, to commemorate the first centennial of the Zaragoza battle in the Independence War. The purpose was to show the industrialization of Zaragoza and as a reconciliation event with France. During the Exhibition different congresses and symposiums took place; one of them was the First International Tourism Congress presided by Basilio Paraiso (5), who was also the president of the Exhibition executive committee.

This was the first time that Spain participated in an international meeting intended to group together the interests of all tourism operators. Several delegations of sport societies, hotel industries, touring clubs, town hall representatives, journalists, French trade unions and federations’ representatives, attended the event. This First International Tourism Congress was followed by others: San Sebastian 1909, Toulouse 1910, Lisbon 1911 and Madrid 1912. There were no further congresses due to the start of the First World War.

Following the European trend, in order to publicize the first centennial of the Zaragoza battle, a two-colored (green and reddish) poste stamp or cinderella, with the name of the city printed on it, was issued to symbolize the Spanish-French friendship. This poster stamp was classified by Gardiner (6) as commemorative, but it can also be considered as touristic, due to the celebration of the mentioned First International Tourism Congress in Zaragoza and the publicity of the city as meeting point. This poster stamp would then be a clear precedent of the poster stamps that only for touristic purposes were issued by different cities (7), as per the above mentioned Laws of 1905 and 1906, and to which reference has been made in precedent published articles, where it is explained that the first Spanish circulated poster stamps were issued in 1913 in Tenerife by the Centre of Propaganda and Tourism Promotion.

The two-colored poster stamp is here presented on a letter (dated after the Zaragoza Exhibition was finished), as a proof of its usage at that period of time and for the purpose to which the poster stamps were created:

NOTES

1.- Cassases, Jordi, La construcción del presente. El mundo de 1848 hasta nuestros días, Ariel, Barcelona, 2014

2- Real Decreto de 6 de Octubre de 1905

3- Gonzalez Morales, Juan Carlos “La Comisión Nacional de Turismo y las primeras iniciativas para el fomento del turismo : La industria de los forasteros ( 1905-1911)” Estudios turísticos no 163-164, Instituto de Estudios Turísticos. Secretaria General de Turismo, 2005

4- Real Orden de 6 de Junio de 1906

5- Basilio Paraiso, graduated in Medicine, was a regenerationist businessman and politician that believed in the potentiality of the tourism business.

6- Gardiner, Stewart and Greiczek, Steve, A General Illustrated Catalogue of Exhibition and Event Poster Stamps to 1914, Cinderella Stamp Club,
2014

7- Fomento de Turismo de Mallorca, created in 1905, the oldest Spanish society to promote tourism; the next were Centro de Propaganda y Turismo de Tenerife, 1907; Sociedad de Propaganda y Fomento del Turismo de
Gran Canaria, 1910.