Way We Were: High flyer helped put Australia on tourism map

As the ongoing coronavirus epidemic means more Queenslanders are being encouraged to holiday at home, we take a look back at the Sunshine State’s emergence as a tourism destination, and the man who pioneered the holiday package deal.

QUEENSLANDERS are being encouraged to holiday at home and why wouldn’t they?

This vast tract of beaches and forest has been enticing overseas visitors since James Cook sailed a converted coal ship named the Endeavour up the coast 250 years ago.

Queensland tourism bosses vow: We will pull through

Anthony Albanese uses Currumbin by-election launch to call for emergency federal funding

The Sunday Mail was at the forefront of encouraging tourism to the emerging holiday destination of the Great Barrier Reef way back in 1949 as the high-flying Melbourne businessman Reg Ansett pioneered the holiday package deal.

Back then Ansett used Catalina flying boats to ferry passengers to and from his new resort on Hayman Island.

On Sunday, September 4, 1949, with the world on an emotional high after World War II, this newspaper reported that American tourists could provide a huge boost to the Queensland economy.

Reg Ansett (pictured in 1935) pioneered the holiday package deal in Australia.

Bartlett Richards, from the US Consulate in Sydney, told our reporter that the Ansett Airways hotel on Hayman had the standard of comfort an American tourist would want.

“A developed Barrier Reef might bring 2000 American tourists yearly,’’ he said. “They possibly would spend 200 or 300 dollars each on their trip (remember this is 71 years ago) , a total of $5 million dollars.’’

But he cautioned that Americans ``spending 1500 dollars in fares getting here will expect a whole lot of comfort.’’

They got it. On Hayman, and so many other magnificent Queensland destinations.

Ansett Airlines, which like Qantas grew from humble beginnings, was a major player in Australian tourism for more than 60 years.

Reg Ansett was born in Inglewood, near Bendigo, Victoria, in 1909. He gained qualifications as a knitting-machine mechanic and in the days of biplanes was an enthusiastic private pilot.

Qantas aeroplane plane moving past Ansett Airlines aeroplane, which lays idle in 2001.

He tried his hand as an axeman as part of a survey team in the Northern Territory and in December 1931 bought a second-hand Studebaker to ferry passengers and parcels between the old Victorian gold towns of Ballarat and Maryborough.

He found a more lucrative route for Ansett Motors from Ballarat to Hamilton in Victoria’s western districts, where wealthy graziers had more to spend.

But his business was derailed by future Prime Minister Bob Menzies, then Victoria’s Transport Minister, who passed a bill to stop service cars taking business from Victorian Railways.

Ansett looked to the heavens for inspiration and decided to try an air service. In 1936 the first Ansett Airways flight, a six-seat Fokker, took off from western Victoria for Melbourne. The business was boosted by publicity from Ansett’s win in the 1936 Brisbane to Adelaide air race, with our Sunday Mail reporting: “Mr Ansett has proved himself a remarkable young man, and one who is prepared to overcome any difficulties that may come his way.’’

For decades Ansett and TAA were Australia’s two leading domestic airlines and Reg Ansett became one of Australia’s best-known businessmen, flying to work in a helicopter every morning.

He also controlled businesses such as Ansett Pioneer coachlines, Gateway Hotels, Diner’s Club Australia, Biro Bic Australia, Avis Rent a Car and television stations in Melbourne and Brisbane which became part of Network Ten.

His views on women were from another time. He once described stewardesses over 30 as “old boilers’’ and sparked a long-running legal battle after refusing to hire a female pilot on the grounds that she might fall pregnant.

His estranged son Bob, who grew up in America, returned to Australia in the 1960s to run Budget Rent A Car in opposition to his father in a high-profile version of family feud.

Reg Ansett died in 1981, having lost control of his airline through a corporate takeover and it eventually went bust in 2001.

Grantlee Kieza’s bestselling biography of Lachlan Macquarie is published by HarperCollins/ABC Books. [e-mail]