However, Switzerland threatened the mountain range’s position north of the Rhine knee. This is why hosts, inn keepers and industrialists founded the future “Badischer Schwarzwaldverein” in Freiburg in 1864.

Their agenda was to promote travelling to the Black Forest and to create an image as an ideal destination for summer visitors. Hiking trails were created and refuges were built, maps for hikers and guides were edited. When in 1873 the “Schwarzwaldbahn” went from Offenburg via Haslach, Triberg and Donaueschingen to Singen for the first time, and when in 1887 the “Höllentalbahn” connected Freiburg and Neustadt, a solid basis for tourist development in the region was established.
After the foundation of the first German ski club in Todtnau close to Feldberg in 1891 there were no barriers for promoting winter sports any more.

Now an organisation for marketing the Black Forest and creating an image nationally and internationally was needed: So in 1906, the “Badischer Verkehrsverband zur Hebung des Fremdenverkehrs e.V.” was founded in Karlsruhe.

For that purpose the “Badische Verkehrsverband” – as it was called later – had posters, tourist guides, brochures for summer visitors, printed and advertised the Black Forest in commercials on the radio and in the cinema. There were negotiations with the railway organisations for direct routes and special trains during the holidays.

The foundation of the Badische Verkehrsverband in 1906 is said to be the hour of birth of organised tourism advertisement and consequently also of today’s Schwarzwald Tourismus Gesellschaft (STG).

World War I let the flourishing tourism in the Black Forest slow down again after only a few years. Several communities started their own marketing then.

In 1933 the national socialists forced the fusion to “Landesfremdenverkehrsverband Baden” and “Landesfremdenverkehrsverband Württemberg-Hohenzollern” per law. After World War II it became “Fremdenverkehrsverband Württemberg”. In the American zone of occupation in Heidelberg the “Fremdenverkehrsverband Nordbaden” was founded and in

1946 the “Badische Fremdenverkehrsverband” in the French zone in Freiburg. In 1954 it turned into “Badischer Fremdenverkehrsverband Schwarzwald-Bodensee-Oberrhein e.V.”,

1969 into „Fremdenverkehrsverband Schwarzwald-Bodensee“.
In 1974 the Baden part of the southern Lake of Constance was separated. 49 communities of Württemberg Black Forest were affiliated to the association and its further name was “Fremdenverkehrsverband Schwarzwald”.

In 1996 it turned into “Schwarzwald Tourismusverband e.V.”. So South-Western Germany had four tourist boards with “Touristik Nördlicher Schwarzwald e.V.” in Pforzheim, “Mittlerer Schwarzwald Tourismus GmbH” in Villingen-Schwenningen and “Tourismus Südlicher Schwarzwald” in Freiburg.

Since January 2006 they are merged into “Schwarzwald Tourismus Gesellschaft (STG)” with its headquarters in Freiburg.

More information on the history of tourism in the Black Forest