Seaside resorts have existed since antiquity. In Roman times, the town of Baiae by the Tyrrhenian Sea in Italy was a resort for those who were sufficiently prosperous. Barcola by the Adriatic Sea in northern Italy with its Roman luxury villas is considered a special example of ancient leisure culture by the sea. Mersea Island in Essex, England was a seaside holiday destination for wealthy ancient Romans living in Colchester.
The development of the beach as a popular leisure resort from the mid-19th century was the first manifestation of what is now the global tourist industry. The first seaside resorts were opened in the 18th century for the aristocracy, who began to frequent the seaside as well as the then fashionable spa towns, for recreation and health. One of the earliest such seaside resorts was Scarborough in Yorkshire during the 1720s; it had been a popular spa town since a stream of acidic water was discovered running from one of the cliffs to the south of the town in the 17th century. The first rolling bathing machines were introduced by 1735.
In 1793, Heiligendamm in Mecklenburg, Germany was founded as the first seaside resort of the European continent, which successfully attracted Europe's aristocracy to the Baltic Sea.
The opening of the resort in Brighton and its reception of royal patronage from King George IV extended the seaside as a resort for health and pleasure to the much larger London market, and the beach became a centre for upper-class pleasure and frivolity. This trend was praised and artistically elevated by the new romantic ideal of the picturesque landscape; Jane Austen's unfinished novel Sanditon is an example of that. Later, Queen Victoria's long-standing patronage of the Isle of Wight and Ramsgate in Kent ensured that a seaside residence was considered a highly fashionable possession for those wealthy enough to afford more than one home.