tourism, East- Central Europe, Cold War, labor

This chapter follows both the Romanian state’s policies with regard to working abroadand workers’ lived experiences with an eye to the Romanian employees who were sentabroad to receive a tourist training. Existing literature has focused on international tourismbetween socialist east and capitalist west, but the focus remained on the cultural and politicalhistory of international tourism, while the issues of labor and employment have been lessexamined. By examining the seasonal labor of Romanian tourist workers in Western Europeandthe Global South this chapter weighs on these exchanges and asks to what extent they workednot just as a transfer of skills, but also as a form of cultural and economic exchanges on bothsides.

This chapter follows both the Romanian state’s policies with regard to working abroadand workers’ lived experiences with an eye to the Romanian employees who were sentabroad to receive a tourist training. Existing literature has focused on international tourismbetween socialist east and capitalist west, but the focus remained on the cultural and politicalhistory of international tourism, while the issues of labor and employment have been lessexamined. By examining the seasonal labor of Romanian tourist workers in Western Europeandthe Global South this chapter weighs on these exchanges and asks to what extent they workednot just as a transfer of skills, but also as a form of cultural and economic exchanges on bothsides.