Among them was Prince Albert I of Monaco, who visited the fjord in 1899 with his yacht Princess Alice. In 1896, the steamship company Vesteraalens Dampskipselskap erected a hotel where Svalbard Airport now stands; the promontory is still called Hotellneset. The hotel even had its own post office, so tourists could send letters home. It was here John Munro Longyear made his first acquaintance with Svalbard. In 1901 he came as a tourist, but the sight of the massive coal seams meant it did not take long before he returned as an industry magnate and mine owner. Nevertheless, it took time before the tourism industry achieved its current scale.

When Store Norske was nationalised, Longyearbyen was supposed to become a normal town and the mining company mainly an ordinary mining company. Falling coal prices meant that the local community needed additional sources of income. Spitsbergen Travel AS was established in 1989 with the aim of developing the tourism industry in Svalbard. The result was the Longyearbyen we see today: a place that offers countless adventures, world-class hotels and restaurants, where the population skyrockets whenever a cruise ship docks.