In the DDR it was the Reisebüro der DDR ("Travel Bureau of the GDR") that controlled the travel industry. They basically owned all the hotels in the DDR, booked travel for DDR citizens in other Soviet Bloc countries by coordinating with their state travel agencies and vice versa. There were also the FDGB Feriendienst which owned holiday homes in Germany and a few river cruise boats and was technically owned by one of the main trade unions, and a third state company which owned all the camping grounds.

Much like in the West, travel was free and unimpeded in the DDR, but to travel outside the country one would need a visa. For that you would either need to be going on a business/diplomatic trip or going on a Reisebüro der DDR trip.

Of course, the Stasi were heavily involved in the workings of the Reisebüros and in practice, how smoothly and quickly your holiday was booked depended on who you were, where you were going and if you were seen as a flight risk. Bulgaria was unquestionably the most popular foreign destination for East German Tourists, but it was also one of the easiest borders to escape the Soviet Bloc from over the greek and turkish borders, so if you were a flight risk and booking there chances are you would suddenly be told the hotel was overbooked, train cancelled or even get your work vacation cancelled. This is a pretty good summary of the Stasi involment in the Reisebüro, but unfortunately only seems to be available in German.

The best English language tale of this I have seen is in Simon Kupers excellent book 'Football Against the Enemy'. He speaks with a couple of members of what became a growing movement, 'football holidays'. Basically, whenever a Western European/German team played a European Cup game in the Soviet bloc, they would book a holiday to that city and attend the game. At first the Reisebüro was very happy, as they assumed that these were true communists showing solidarity with their 'brother countries' by going to the match, and visas and hotels were issued without a problem. After a while, the Stasi realised these fans were going not to cheer for the communist team, but the Western team and it's more famous players. From this point on they made it almost impossible for an East German to get a holiday to watch a Soviet bloc team against a West German team, and very difficult to watch a Soviet bloc team against another Western opponent. The Stasi museum in Berlin has a huge display on their football operations, including a stadium plan for one of the more high profile games showing exactly how many stasi/informants/uniformed police would be present at the game, in which locations etc etc and all the original documentation.

And were travel posters and campaigns encouraging tourism possible in Communist countries?

Yes. Here are some:

...And after your purchase at [state department store], away on holiday!

Hapy travels through the DDR Reiseburo

Genuine Holidays

[Pic of DDR Resiburo in Leipzig](http://leipziger-bilderkiste.de/galerie/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=684&g2_serialNumber=()

Greetings! Many subscribers have been eager to share personal stories on similar threads in the past, but please be mindful of the subreddit rule: no anecdotes please! Let's stick to the subreddit rules - thanks everyone! :)