1925 – First Escorted Tour
“ ‘A Vacation Hint’ – Six Day Tour in spacious
Touring Cars, covering 1000 miles of beautiful
highways… Lots of fun for all… Everything included, $69”
It all began with a New England Fall Foliage tour. Arthur Tauck Sr. was a salesman who
loved life on the road, and he loved New England. While having lunch one day, an idea
percolated – the “casual visitor” didn’t know the area well enough to travel without
knowledgeable guidance, and therefore was missing out on all of the spectacular fall
foliage on the back roads of New England. The back roads he certainly knew very well…
The idea of being a “tourist” wasn’t new – but the idea of a vacation where transportation
and every facet of the trip was taken care of – that was new!
Banff Springs Hotel
1935 – Tour Broker License #1
Ten years after Tauck began operations, the newly
formed Interstate Commerce Commission held
hearings in Washington to regulate the different modes
of transportation. Arthur Sr. went to Washington to
explain how his tour business operated – and the
Commission was perplexed; he was not a “carrier” nor
was he an operator. After deliberation, he was deemed a “broker,” and was granted Tour
Broker License #1. A new industry was born.
1958 – First Private Air Charter
Arthur Jr. was convinced that air travel was the
future – and he had to take on the entire airline
industry that vehemently opposed his application
to the Civil Aeronautics Board to charter flights
to Nova Scotia. This legal battle involved a rare
and successful Congressional Review of an earlier
Supreme Court decision known as The Tauck Case.
1962 – First Tour Operator in the National Park Hotels
Le Ponant in the Mediterranean
...“No train ticket, bring a tent”…
Until the late 1950s, leisure travel to Western USA and Canada was almost exclusively by
rail; Arthur Jr. knew the national parks would be irresistible to travelers, especially those
with increasingly limited time. Air travel, combined with Tauck’s signature land tours, was
the answer – but the biggest challenge was getting access to the best hotels within the
parks, as the railroads had a “lock.” In Canada, Arthur first applied for rooms in 1958
and was turned down; he applied again in 1959… 1960, 1961… and finally in 1962 was
granted rooms at a motel outside of Banff National Park. Two years (and many customers
later), we received space at the Banff Springs Hotel – and are there to this very day.
1978 – Computer Automation
First Customer Relationship
Management System
Arthur Jr. automated Tauck’s reservation system
in 1978, emphasizing a marketing and customer
service focused system that would meet the needs
of travel agents, clients, and suppliers – not one
designed for and driven by accounting. This first CRM was years ahead of its time, and was so
successful it was leased to competitors in the industry.
Peter Tauck on a European development trip
4
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