The PTA: Promoting Swiss tours, 1888–1939

•Examines changing relationship between tourism industry, education, leisure.•Extends ‘virtual curating’ to the analysis of archive documents.•Analyses the transformation of the role of travel within society.•Shows that educational aims contributed to the growth of British tourism industry.•Social commodification fostered leisure travel in order to engage with culture.

This research examines the development from educational to commercial tourism in Britain between the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century by questioning whether this reflected a transformed understanding of the role of travel within society. It focuses on the Polytechnic Touring Association (PTA), a London-based originally philanthropic travel organisation that became a commercial firm. During this period the PTA moved from the project of contributing to the education of citizens to the market-led imperative of ‘harnessing’ a consumer desire. In examining this transformation via the PTA’s changing approach to the visual promotion of its Swiss tours, we suggest that the development of the tourism industry in Britain should also be explored in relation to changing ideas about travel’s contribution to social formation.