Summary
Founded in 1970, the Spartacus International Gay Guides introduced LGBT-travelers to potential holiday destinations. It listed relevant gay and gay-friendly hotels, bars, saunas, restaurants, and other businesses and locations per city and country. Already in 1970, the segment on Amsterdam was relatively long. The initial target audience for the Guides were primarily gay men, for whom Amsterdam was one of the most popular destinations. This paper discusses the relationship between gay tourism and the development of gay space in Amsterdam between 1970-1979. It does so by examination of the Spartacus Guides published during this period. This examination focuses on what businesses were present and promoted in the Guides, and on the spatial positioning of said businesses in relation to the “gay space” already present and developing in Amsterdam. How did gay tourism contribute to Amsterdam’s reputation as a “world mecca of gay life”, and what was the role of Amsterdam’s gay businesses in this process?
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Suus van den Berg heeft recent de master Queer History aan Goldsmiths University of London met distinctie afgerond. Hun specialisatie bevindt zich op het gebied van contactadvertenties en de sociale en seksuele netwerken van homoseksuele mannen in de periode 1915-1921. Daarnaast loopt Suus momenteel stage bij IHLIA, houdt zich bezig met het ‘queeren’ van geschiedeniseducatie op scholen en in musea, en is hard op zoek naar een baan of opdracht in een van deze of een vergelijkbaar gebied.
