Blackpool is Europe's premier holiday resort attracting millions of visitors every year, and it has been a popular holiday destination ever since Victorian days when the mill workers of the Northern industrial areas would  take their annual breaks in the town.  It is said that at its peak Blackpool would receive some 19 million visitors each year,  and photographs of earlier years in the last century show throngs of people on the beach and all along the seafront.  Just as the availability of cheap railway and road transport brought the crowds of holidaymakers to Blackpool in those earlier years, so cheap air travel in the 1960's took these visitors to the continental beaches where the weather was more reliable and accommodation had become relatively inexpensive.

Despite this comparative decline in its popularity Blackpool retains its position as the  number one holiday resort - it is said that even today the town has in excess of two thousand holiday establishments, reputedly more than the entire country of Portugal.  Although many people now go abroad for their annual holidays, millions of visitors still go to Blackpool, even if only for a short break,  maybe a weekend by the sea or to tour the illuminations.