100 years of exploration with the MICHELIN Green Guide!
The MICHELIN Green Guide celebrates its 100th anniversary this year!
For the occasion, L’Aventure Michelin invites you to discover a temporary digital exhibition tracing the highlights and history of this unforgettable saga.
Michelin at the wheel of mobility
The MICHELIN Guide
In 1900, at a time when there were fewer than 3,000 cars in France, Michelin published its first Red Guide. Distributed free of charge, this handy little guide contained all the practical information a motorist might need: where to find fuel, where to locate a garage, and where to stop for the night at a hotel.
In the preface to that very first edition, André Michelin – ever the visionary – wrote: “This work appears with the century; it will last as long as it does!”
The Itinerary Office
The Michelin Tourist Office on Boulevard Pereire, created in 1908, became the Itinerary Office in 1923.
Motorists, quite rightly expecting Bibendum to provide them with a guiding “Ariadne’s thread”, turned to this office for assistance similar to that offered by automobile clubs or the Touring Club de France (TCF). “I’d like to go from Paris to Nice. Which road would you recommend? Where can I stop along the way?”
Drivers would provide their places of departure and destination by mail or telephone, and Michelin would reply with a detailed description of the route to follow. The typed sheets included safety advice as well as points of interest. This complimentary service was the forerunner of ViaMichelin.
1926-1945: The early days of the Green Guide
The historical context of the interwar period
In September 1917, the first MICHELIN Battlefields Guide was published, focusing on the First Battle of the Marne. With this publication, Michelin aimed to bring a new purpose to this type of memorial tourism.
Thus was born the collection of small, high-quality, and richly illustrated volumes known as Battlefields Guides. Through some thirty editions, the collection became a miniature encyclopaedia of the First World War. Their horizon-blue covers evoked the uniforms of French soldiers.
The Itinerary Office and the success of the Battlefields Guides were two powerful Michelin initiatives that paved the way for a new series of MICHELIN Guides: the tourist guides.
The first guides: formats, destinations, design
Building on this experience, Michelin launched a collection of regional tourist guides as early as 1926. Travel had now become a leisure activity, and each guide included a description of the region along with suggested sightseeing itineraries. Brittany was the first region covered, followed by the Alps and then the Loire Valley castles. At the time, the MICHELIN Guides featured different cover colours depending on the country, with red representing France. That means the predecessor of the Green Guide was also red!
In 1936, the introduction of paid holidays in France paved the way for mass tourism, allowing a large portion of the population to travel.
By 1938, both the colour and format of this collection of tourist guides were changed: the cover became green (to distinguish it from the gastronomic guide), and its height was adjusted to correspond with that of a road map.
1946-1960: Tourism during postwar reconstruction
The role of the Green Guide in rediscovering French heritage.
The guide became an essential companion for the “new tourists” in the rise of mass tourism after the Second World War. Focused on exploring heritage, cultural treasures, and landscapes, this approach to cultural tourism was met with widespread acclaim.
Frequent, well-documented updates ensured that the information remained reliable. It was not only carefully illustrated and richly mapped, but also much more affordable than any other guide.
Opening to the world
The Green Guide didn’t wait to cover all of France before setting out to explore the globe!
A tourist guide for Morocco was published in 1939, followed by a Green Guide for Algeria in 1956. The Green Guide continued its tour of Europe: Switzerland (1957), Italy (1958), Austria (1961), and beyond...
Including a transatlantic excursion with a beautiful New York guide in 1968.
Want to discover more?
We invite you to explore the full story of the MICHELIN Green Guide, and much more, by visiting L’Aventure Michelin in Clermont-Ferrand.
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