A Brief History of Goway
The Early Years
Goway Travel was created in Toronto in 1970 by Bruce Hodge. Prior to arriving in Canada, Bruce was a research economist with the Reserve Bank of Australia; then worked in England as a tour guide and subsequently became operations and sales manager for a London-based European tour operation.
Goway specialized in fun holidays for the "under the 30s" as well as overland adventure tours through Africa and Asia. This was augmented by the introduction of mini-bus tours of North America and an eight-year period of operating coach tours through South America (including during the Falkland war). Goway divested its interests in American Adventures (the mini-bus venture) in the early '90s!
The Eighties and Nineties
Along the way, as a result of connections "Downunder" (Australia and the South Pacific), Goway evolved into North America's largest specialist travel company for the South Pacific. From modest beginnings, Goway now represents all the leading tour operators in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Tahiti and the Cook Islands.
Today we are still the only North American travel company that fully owns its own office in Australia. Goway Sydney was set up to maintain price controls and to offer additional service to travellers Downunder - a terrific help to Goway passengers during an airline strike several years ago, an airline failure and problems caused by September 11th.
Today Goway has sales and reservations offices in Toronto, Vancouver and Los Angeles.
With the South Pacific covered, in the mid-1980 Goway developed a similar product line in Asia. Today Goway has programs in China, India and over 20 other countries throughout the region.
"Over the years we honed our skills at being very proficient in designing personalized customized itineraries for independent Globetrotters."
In the mid '90s, Goway introduced a full line of products for Southern, Eastern and Northern Africa to cater to the ongoing interests of our past travellers. (Bruce's wife also comes from South Africa!). Branded AFRICAExperts this division proudly lives up to its name. They are also experts in travel to the Middle East.
Also in the mid '90s Goway introduced the IslandsEscapes brand of exotic travel ideas to the world's most idyllic Islands... Tahiti, Fiji, Cook Islands, Tonga, Samoa, Samui, Phuket, Maldives, Seychelles, Mauritius. Today we also have special packages to Bali, the Greek Islands and Croatia.
The New Millenium
The movie "Crocodile Dundee" and the Sydney Olympics in 2000 enhanced Goway's stakes as the North American leader for travel to Downunder. Unfortunately, September 11th devastated our industry for a period in the early 2000s.
In 2005 Goway purchased the specialist Adventure company AdventuresIncorporated to maintain a focus on the world of adventure. Following the same mandate as other Goway specialist divisions, the adventure team offers past, present and future Goway Globetrotters an exciting range of travel ideas.
To enhance our ability to appeal to past clients we continue to develop new destinations as we did in 2010 for Latin America with travel ideas to most countries in South and Central America.
In 2015 yet another product line was launched to cater to past clients... UK-Europe and The Mediterranean.
Over the years we honed our skills at being very proficient in designing personalized customized itineraries for independent Globetrotters. At the same time, we developed exclusive top-class small group escorted touring experiences to our main destinations called HOLIDAYS OF A LIFETIME. They carry Goway's promise "of something special".
The strength of Goway has always been our staff and our commitment to customer satisfaction. Many of our staff are longtime employees and Bruce Hodge continues to be president, while his son Adam and daughter Bronwyn are also actively involved.
"Goway has always been a leader in the travel industry".
As we are very optimistic about the future of "long haul" travel, expect more innovative ideas from us!
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