Tourism development focused on the seaside towns and cities, while the hinterland was seen exclusively as a source of supplies. Austrian investors brought architects and head waiters with them, the menus featured Austrian cuisine, and the resorts' orchestras played waltzes. "Spa commissions" or "improvement associations" often assumed responsibility for communal functions such as street cleaning and public lighting, making tourism centres relatively autonomous. "Abbazia" poster painted by Stephanie Glax, 1911, color lithograph © Wien Museum.

The term "Riviera" probably began to be used in the context of health tourism. Meteorological measurements had shown that the region's climate resembles that of the French Riviera. The common topographical features of the two regions are steep cliffs along the coastline, climate-regulating forests, evergreen shrubs and exotic plants, such as eucalyptus and mimosas. "Abbazia South Beach" painted by Erwin Pendl, 1911, color print after a watercolor. Samsinger Collection, Vienna.

Like many other places in the region, Abbazia benefited from the construction of a rail link between Vienna and Rijeka which passed nearby. The Southern Railway Company (Südbahn) played a major role in Abbazia's development, following up its earlier investments in the Semmering region with huge injections of capital on the Adriatic. "The Seaside Resort of Grado" poster painted by Josef Maria Auchentaller, 1906, color lithograph © Wien Museum.

The classicist hotels, promenades and parks of the posh resort attracted members of the royal family, nobility from all over Europe and other wealthy patrons. "In Front of the Hotel Quarnero" painted by Stephanie Glax, 1906, Private Collection, Vienna.

In the island of Brioni (today's Brijuni), this formerly deemed uninhabitable because of endemic malaria, was converted by industrialist Paul Kupelwieser into a holiday resort for an affluent clientele. Kupelwieser built hotels and an underwater freshwater pipeline from the mainland, imported exotic plants and animals (including monkeys, antelopes and flamingos) and offered visitors excellent sports facilities (tennis, sailing, etc.) plus a wealth of other recreational pursuits. "Abbazia" Sport Week 4-12 May 1912, poster painted by Stephanie Glax, 1911, color lithograph © Wien Museum.

When Vienna's Mayor Karl Lueger led a delegation on a visit to Spalato/Split in 1909, they were booed by demonstrators – allegedly "foreign elements, outsiders", according to Lueger's embarrassed local counterpart, Mayor Vicko Mihaljević. The relationship between the locals and the visitors remained distant and superficial under the guise of tourism. Mayor of Vienna Karl Lueger in Lovrana (Lovran), 1909, photograph © Wien Museum.

There were also less glamorous towns where more modest guest-houses – albeit with grand names – tried to woo visitors. A more differentiated tourism market evolved: while Abbazia was best known as a winter health resort, Grado's flat and sandy beaches turned it into a summer holiday destination for families. Family Holiday in Grado, 1912, photo postcard, Peter König Collection, Vienna.

"In recent years, people have increasingly been picking up traces and reconnecting with traditional knowledge, and cultural historians are also taking a renewed interest in the region, both in Austria and in Croatia. ... "the importance of military and political domination, the development of transport in the northern Adriatic and the decisive role of medicine in promoting health resorts such as Abbazia; it presents artists' new perspectives on the region and ethnographers' journeys of exploration into one of the poorest regions of the Habsburg monarchy." Preliminary sketches for postcards of the 1913 Adriatic Exhibition painted by Bertold Löffler, Ink, chalk, watercolour © Wien Museum