“Make a tour of the homeland”

Faced with fuel rationing during the Second World War, Migros subsidiary Hotelplan came up with the «holiday on a bike» idea in 1941. It was yet another offer that followed Hotelplan’s «all-inclusive» formula.

With the start of the Second World War, tour operator Hotelplan’s business completely collapses. In Switzerland, the mobilisation of soldiers, fuel rationing and uncertainty keep most people at home and guests from abroad stay away entirely. Instead of making some Hotelplan employees redundant, Gottlieb Duttweiler employs them in other Migros operations. Those who remain develop a new tourism concept for wartime: in cooperation with the Swiss cyclists’ association, the ‘holiday on a bike’ is launched in 1941. Again, the motto is ‘everything included’: 420 hotels, 21 beach resorts, 30 transport companies and 14 cinemas, halls and dancing establishments join in. Gottlieb Duttweiler himself writes the introduction to the brochure and promises, in the terminology of intellectual national defence, that the ‘bike spirit’ is creating a new community: “The bicycle balances the social highs and lows, just as skis do.” Five thousand guests complete their personal Tour de Suisse, assisted by a breakdown service from Hotelplan. Instead of the ‘holiday on a bike’, the Hotelplan customers may also choose ‘sport arrangements without lunch’, a national park programme or ‘rucksack tourism’.