A seaside resort is a resort located on the coast. Where a beach is the primary focus for tourists, it may be called a beach resort.

Brighton on the south coast of England was perhaps the first seaside resort, popularised by King George IV, while he was Prince Regent, as a fashionable alternative to the wealthy spa towns such as Bath. Improvements in transportation brought about by the industrial revolution enabled more people to take regular holidays away from home, and led to the redevelopment and growth of many coastal towns as seaside resorts. As the nineteenth century progressed, working class day_trippers often travelled on organised trips such as railways excursions, or by steamer, for which were erected long piers so that the ships bringing the lucrative trade could berth.

From the last quarter of the twentieth century, the popularity of the British seaside resort has declined for the same reason that it first flourished: advancements in transportation. The greater accessibility of foreign holiday destinations, through package holidays and, more recently, European low_cost airlines, affords more people the freedom to holiday abroad. Now, many characteristic symbols of the traditional British resort (caravan parks, end_of_the_pier shows and saucy postcards) are popularly regarded as drab and outdated; the skies are imagined to be overcast and the beach windswept.

See also

• Coney Island