'One voice for Australia' : a marketing history of Australia's National Tourist Organisation 1929-1967.

'One Voice For Australia': A Marketing History of Australia's National Tourist Organisation -1929-1967 This study examines, III an historical marketing context, the establishment of Australia's fust national tourist organisation in 1929, the semi-official, non-profit, Australian National Travel Association (ANTA). In 1966, following the recommendations of the Harris, Kerr, Forster Report, the Association's major function, tourism marketing, became incorporated into a statutory authority, the Australian Tourist Commission (ATC) in 1967. External and internal factors were inevitably responsible for the establishment and evolution of both organisations. The creation of the Association, modelled on community advertising principles and the Commonwealth Government's assumption of responsibility for tourism, albeit the marlreting function, were not unique to Australia but merely reflected international trends; however the position of tourism under the Federal Constitution was instrumental in determining the powers of the ATC to market to tourists overseas and within Australia. This thesis traces these historical developments and suggests reasons for the Commonwealth Government's decision to fully fund the Commission rather than provide token financial assistance to a non-profit organisation. Marketing history in tourism is a new historical field but follows the principles of historical research by incorporating both macro and micro perspectives. Analysis of demand and supply factors are systematically examined in the context of an historical marketing framework. Two methodologies have been used in this study. The first examines, in a historical context, secondary literature relating to the origins of Australia's international tourism market during two buoyant periods of international tourism growth during the 1930s, 1950s and 1960s, and those supply factors affecting the development of the Australia's tourist product. The second method employs primary research to retrieve and examine archival records relating to the origins and evolution of the Association, and Commonwealth and State Government's attitudes to tourism whilst the application semiotic analysis of marketing ephemera is used to examine the Association's marketing activities in greater detail. Government involvement in tourism marketing has a long history in Australia having been used by State Governments as a tool to effect economic development since 1905. Tourism policy at the national level has been more problematic, although the Commonwealth had exercised its overseas marketing powers for commodities since the 1920s and tentatively supported the objectives of the Association until 1940 through encouragement and financial contributions. Just as the Association's creation was inspired by the energy and vision of remarkable tourism pioneers, the Association's survival and resurgence was due to the remarkable tenacity of those same visionaries and the acumen of others without whose advocacy Australia's tourism history may well have been different. The events of 1966 and 1967 are crucial to understanding the present nature of Australia's tourism organisation, but it is not well appreciated that the demise of the Tourist Council of Australia in 2000 marked the final chapter of the Association.