followed the war brought great changes to Bermuda's visitor industry, and to The Princess Hotel. Prior to the war, visitors arrived almost exclusively by sea. Although air service to Bermuda began in 1937, two years before the declaration of war, the flying boats that operated to Darrell's Island were few, and their seats were limited. Tickets for the hours-long flights from the US were expensive, and ocean liners continued to play a major role in passenger transport to and from Bermuda. Holidaying in Bermuda (catering to which, for hoteliers, had expanded into a year-round business, no longer focused on the original Winter season) remained a prerogative of the wealthy. The war had resulted in the development of two American airstations on Bermuda, the Naval Operating Base, serving US Navy flying boats, and the US Army's Kindley Field, as well as the establishment of a US Army garrison of artillery and infantry defences to re-inforce the British Army's Bermuda Garrison. Bermuda's use as a forming-up point for trans-Atlantic convoys meant that numerous ships carrying American soldiers to the North African and European theatres of war, as well as US Naval vessels deploying to those theatres or escorting convoys, also brought vast numbers of Americans from all levels of society to Bermuda during the war. This both exposed Bermuda to America's working and middle classes, and exposed those classes to Bermudians. Following the war, the air transport industry went through rapid development, with piston, turboprop, and then jet engined landplane airliners of increasing size and speed serving Bermuda from ever more North American cities, flying into the US Army's new airfield (flying boat air service to Darrell's Island ceased in 1948). This led to larger numbers of air arrivals, and falling ticket prices, opening Bermuda to short-term holidays by the average American family. These new visitors were less interested in attending balls, hunting aristocratic husbands, or Bermuda's other traditional genteel and wintry leisure activities. New hotels had sprung up in Bermuda even before the war, such as the Castle Harbour Hotel and the Elbow Beach Hotel, which offered visitors direct access to the beach in more natural surroundings, and better catered to sun-seekers and hedonists. More beach resorts were built after the war, including the Carlton Beach resort, the Grotto Bay Hotel, and the Princess' own sister hotel, the Southampton Princess (currently dubbed the Fairmont Southampton), built in 1972 on a 100-acre