Austour News

THEN

1963 – the good old days! Alice Springs had a population of fewer than 5,000; Ayers Rock/Uluru had a record year of 3,000 visitors and small resorts were being established around Alice Springs – tourism was starting to take off.

It was in this environment that Max and Sue Whitehead first began planning tours to Central Australia. In May 1963 a school bus type vehicle headed off to The Alice with a group of happy campers on safari. With the support of the Victorian Government Tourist Bureau, then the biggest travel agency selling The Outback, four tours were filled and so started 40 years of tour operations for the Whitehead family.

AND NOW

More recently in 1993 when Max and Sue were in America on a Northern Territory Tourist Commission trade promotion they wanted to visit Yosemite National Park on their one day off. They heard about a Gray Line tour that left San Francisco at 5.00 am and retuned at midnight. A big day but what a great day – informative, well planned and enough time to see and do everything. This prompted them to think that the time was right to start Australia’s longest day tour – Ayers Rock/Uluru in a day from Alice Springs. The big companies said it wouldn’t catch on – how wrong they were!

Ironically ten years later Gray Line identified this tour as one they would like to market worldwide. This resulted in a win/win relationship being established in July 2004 enabling Austour to outsource its coach operation to Gray Line and for the tour product to reach a whole new worldwide market. Austour also continues to operate its Overland Adventures around Australia spanning a 40 year period of significant change in the Australian tourist industry.

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