The following article highlights a critical period in the life of the National Tour Association when the organization decided to transition from one run by the members to one with the support of professional management. In the 75-year history of NTA, the years from 1974 to 1997 set in motion many fundamental programs and member services that still resonate today. They have helped make NTA and its members respected leaders in the travel industry.
By Bill Bowden
Bruce Beckham well remembers the time in 1974 when the National Tour Brokers Association (now the National Tour Association) signed its first professional management services contract with Jim Host & Associates of Lexington, Kentucky.
Beckham was president of Beckham Tours of Canton, Massachusetts, at the time, a member of the NTA Board of Directors and a future NTA president. The members ran the organization essentially by themselves since its founding in 1951.
“We had some very strong volunteers leading NTA, but they were also running their own companies,” Beckham recalled. “We needed help.”
Lynn B. “Spike” Herzig, president of High Adventure Tours of Syracuse, New York, was also on the board and a future NTA president. “We had a great organization, but the board was getting pressure from the members to make it more than just an annual meeting,” Herzig recalled. “We were looking for someone who could help us grow and expand member services.”
Jim Host was on NTA’s radar because of a film he was producing for the association. “He was brought in for marketing purposes initially,” Beckham said. The film, starring Hollywood actor Chill Wills, was titled “Come on Along, America!” and promoted group tours.
Rick Etherson of Roger Q Tours heard Host speak at a tourism conference in Tennessee and asked him if he had any experience in filmmaking. Host told him about a promotional film he had produced for the Lexington Tourist and Convention Bureau when he was executive director of that organization.
Host’s career to that point included a time in executive sales with Procter & Gamble. His involvement in the 1967 election of Louie B. Nunn as governor of Kentucky led to appointments as the state’s commissioner of Public Information and later commissioner of the Department of Parks. After an unsuccessful run for lieutenant governor in 1971, he left politics to form his own marketing and communications company.
A committee consisting of veteran NTA members met with Host to inquire about his possible interest in managing the association. They were Arthur C. Tauck Jr. of Tauck Tours, Mary Lee of Mary Lee Tours, and George Talmage of Talmage Thrift Tours. They came away suitably impressed with his manner and credentials.
At the April 1974 board meeting, NTA made Host a formal offer to become executive vice president of the organization, which he accepted. “We had one or two other people who made presentations,” Herzig recalled, “but after Jim made his, we all just sat there and said, ‘Well, this is it. There’s no need to go any further.’ He was very articulate and well organized.”
Host recalled being impressed by the NTA members he had met and was intrigued by the possibilities. “I saw an opportunity to help develop a trade association that could be a great asset to its members and an influence in the travel industry.”
An initial obstacle to hiring Host and his Lexington company was the members’ desire to have NTA headquartered in Washington, District of Columbia. But, they were quickly convinced that a year-round physical presence in the nation’s capital was not necessary to serve their needs.
“We came to a compromise, realizing that Jim had the political expertise we were looking for and that he would agree to spend some of his time in District of Columbia,” Herzig said. Later, NTA established an office in nearby Alexandria, Virginia, staffed by former congressman from Nevada, Jim Santini, to represent NTA. The association was also instrumental in establishing the Tourism Caucus.
A new beginning
With Host now on board as the association’s executive vice president (a position he held until he stepped down in 1997), and a full-time staff and physical headquarters (both for the first time), NTA was soon on an upward path of increasing size, member involvement, and innovation.
It didn’t take long for members to see the benefits of their new arrangement. Oscar Fowler, a business professor at the University of Tennessee and known to Etherson, was engaged to develop computerized scheduling of appointments in the “Sales O’Rama” (later the Tour & Travel Exchange) at the annual convention. This innovation, introduced in January at the 1975 convention in San Diego, California, became a model for other trade associations.
“We were all just blown away with the computerization of our appointments,” Herzig said. Before that, allied members (including hotels, attractions, transportation companies, and restaurants) had a “dance card” of appointments but often found themselves running to whatever tour operator table was open.
“It had no organizational structure,” Herzig said. This had become a sore point with the members. Now, the Exchange operated in an orderly and productive manner.
That sense of organization and discipline was a harbinger of a new direction for NTA, a change that Host made sure was directed by the members.
“The members always set policy and direction,” he said. “My staff and I carried out the policies.”
Mary Stachnik and her late husband, John Stachnik, operated Mayflower Tours of Downers Grove, Illinois. John was president of NTA in 1992. Mary remembers how Host encouraged the members to get involved.
“Jim did a beautiful job of getting members to be the leaders,” she said. “He shaped us up.”
Herzig said that approach was especially helpful to him in his NTA involvement. “Jim took the board at that time and made some really good leaders out of us. In my case, it was much more than I thought I could possibly be.”
That leadership style was needed in the early years of the Host management era to deal with federal regulation of the tour broker business by the Interstate Commerce Commission. A license was required, and the ICC held hearings to assess the need for any new broker service. It was a very restrictive atmosphere, and fighting for deregulation was the reason for what is recognized as the first meeting of the association on Feb.19, 1951.
That all changed dramatically in 1982 with passage of the Bus Regulatory Reform Act, which lowered barriers to entry. Now, the business was largely deregulated and open to anyone who could meet the ICC’s “…fit, willing, and able…” standard. In that same year, the National Tour Brokers Association changed to the National Tour Association.
“I knew deregulation was coming,” Host said. “In the meantime, the NTA leaders decided we needed to do all we could to bring the kind of professionalism to tour brokers that would help them survive in a deregulated environment.”
Diversification was one way to meet this challenge. For Mayflower Tours, that took the form of a new product, riverboat cruises of Europe. Mary recalled, “John and I took one and it was so relaxing and enjoyable. That’s really what made us successful.”
Another priority among the membership in 1974 was a demand for better communication, both within the association and outwardly towards the traveling public by way of promoting what was then termed group tours, now packaged travel.
Communication to the members meant increased mailings from headquarters and included the birth of a new monthly publication named, “Courier,” a name drawn from the British meaning of the word, which is “…a person hired by travelers to take charge of the arrangements of a journey.”
Courier began in 1974 as a four-page black-and-white newsletter and evolved into a four-color magazine averaging 88 pages per issue. Allied members and public service organizations (now destination marketing organizations) were eager to promote their businesses and destinations. Their advertising support fueled the steady growth of Courier.
Communication directed at the traveling public featured media initiatives that highlighted group travel. The Chill Wills film was the beginning of this process. Hollywood actress Beverly Garland became NTA’s official spokesperson in 1980 and the consumer awareness campaign “Travel Together” was launched.
The benefits continue
The story of NTA’s transition from a member-run organization to a professionally supported association touches on every aspect of member services and the packaged travel industry. The benefits of those formative years continue today.
NTA membership grew dramatically from 75 tour operators and 200 supplier and destination marketing organizations to 600 tour operators and 3,400 supplier and DMO members. NTA began its Certified Tour Professional credential in 1985, and the National Tour Foundation began in 1991. NTA’s internet presence began in 1995 with the launch of NTA Online.
Looking back on those years, Host has many fond memories of working with the NTA family and a sense of satisfaction at a job well done in helping to shepherd the organization toward progressive goals.
“It’s the story of a group of people who were great volunteers in service to NTA and who decided they wanted to be better, more professional, and improve their businesses,” Host said. “It was an amazing time for both me and the NTA members.”
Beckham also looks back on the decision to hire Host and his company in 1974 and has no doubt it was the key to NTA’s growth and prosperity ever since. In a sentiment likely shared by many other members at the time, he said, “It was absolutely the best decision we ever made.”
Bill Bowden was an NTA staff member and editor of Courier from 1974 to 1997.
Spike Herzig’s book, “The Building of an Industry: The Official History of the National Tour Association,” (1997) was essential to the research behind this article.
