40 years after he founded Goway Travel, Bruce Hodge takes us back to 1970, when the travel world was a very different place. Here is an excerpt from the 40th Anniversary edition of Goway Travel’s Globetrotting magazine.
By 1970, travel had changed dramatically. Airlines surpassed shipping lines as the dominant trans-ocean people movers following the introduction of jetliners early in the 60’s. Within continents, bus travel (e.g. Greyhound) replaced train journeys as the major form of mass transport.
Because of how travel was sold, travel agencies were necessary businesses in large communities. Usually street level, many still had models of ocean liners up to 5 feet long in their windows. International Air Transport Association (IATA) would only appoint one travel agency in an area with the authority to sell their member airlines. Individual airlines would provide appointed agencies with their ‘plate’ so they could issue handwritten paper tickets. These chosen agents reported sales monthly and they then had 30 days to pay airlines.
Most agencies were financially successful because they had this sales exclusivity. Some also had exclusivity over sales of tickets for ocean liners. So, in 1970 if you wanted to travel, you had no choice but to go to a travel agent.
For a number of years package holidays (air and hotel included) had been operating in Europe, particularly from Britain to southern Spain. But this concept was very new to North America at that time.
No one was travelling to Asia. The Vietnam War was raging. China was still under Mao Zedong. A visit to Hong Kong was an unusual adventure.
In Europe, the Iron Curtain separated the USSR and its Eastern Block European satellites, including East Germany, from Western Europe. Tours into Eastern Europe and Russia had begun, but tourists had to go through a strict visa process and an official guide had to accompany tourists.
At that time, the Middle East was relatively peaceful and safe overland journeys by bus or truck were available from Europe through Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir, India to Nepal. Some even travelled via Israel. Kathmandu was the world mecca for travelling hippies.
Apart from a few 4WD jeep and truck expeditions across Africa, tourists were not going to southern Africa. Most overland journeys, if they got through, began or finished in Nairobi.
South America in 1970 was very stable politically when compared to Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe. Because of stereotype stigma however, only ‘real’ travellers ventured there.
Apart from Europe and North America there was generally no real international tourism infrastructure in the rest of the world. In Australia for instance, American G.I.s taking R & R leave from the Vietnam War are credited with helping to launch that country’s tourism business.
As always, the winds of change kept blowing and things continued to evolve. Airlines, historically the pride of their respective countries, were usually government owned and propped up by tax payers. Some of the privileges (like exclusivity on some routes) were starting to end by 1970. Charter flights had arrived. Rules at the time were that planes could only be chartered by affinity clubs. Most of these clubs had some sort of ethnic connection that developed out of the millions of immigrants that had come to North America after WWII. They were still coming and many wanted to go back to see their families.
A new breed of travel agent was also evolving and the establishment referred to them as ‘bucket shops’. These did not
have the ‘rights’ to sell national airlines or the respected shipping lines but they learned how to sell charter flights and inclusive tour charters (I.T.C.’s or air and land packages, first to Florida and Hawaii and then the Caribbean and Mexico, were beginning to catch on in a big way).
The authorities had great trouble policing the rules of charter flights as more and more people began to travel. Unprofessional and unscrupulous entrants to the travel industry would lead to many airline and bucket shop failures. Governments eventually had to intervene and in 1974 regulations were put in place. In Ontario, where Goway is headquartered, all travel sellers are required to be licensed and conform to strict financial requirements (Ontario is probably the most strict in the world). Taming the Wild West of travel had begun.
By: Bruce Hodge, Goway Travel
Photo Credits: mr_sailor, theinvisibleagent.files.wordpress.com, mevans