Board of Advertising Guides + Handbooks

The background to the Board of Advertising is given elsewhere - from 1896 they issued an annual guide/handbook - pre WW1 this contain a list of places offering accomodation, post WW1 to WW2 it contained many pages of small adverts by individual establishments. As printing became cheaper more illustrations appeared - colour photos was used from early 1950s onwards.

The text (and some illustrations) of a selected number of guides is given here to indicate how the Island was 'sold'. The lists of accomodation from the early guides are available on CD_Rom

1897

second year of issue

1898

Possibly the most attractive cover of the pre WW1 books.

1904

format altered to landscape - eases presentation of tabulated lists of accomodation - compare with 1906 IoMSPCo guide

1923

An attractive period cover

1924 - advertising booklet

1934(40th year of publication)

a rather bland cover - compare with the modernist LMS publicity guide of 1930;
Cover 1940 Official Guide

1940 (46th year of publication)

a sombre cover - no individual adverts - possibly produced in hope that the war would be over in 1940 and that visitors would return

1947 (47th year of publication)

First post WW2 issue - the tourists were beginning to return and a few good years were about to start before the gradual loss of the Island's working class mass tourism to cheap flights to Spain etc

 

 Tourism

    

Any comments, errors or omissions gratefully received The Editor
© F.Coakley , 2011