Contiki History

Our history and evolution

In 1961, a young New Zealander named John Anderson arrived in London to embark on a journey to Europe. He didn’t want to travel alone and he didn’t have a lot of money, so he came up with a plan. He put a deposit on a minibus and gathered a group of people to travel with. They spent twelve weeks exploring Europe together and had a wonderful time. In the Spring of 1962 he decided to advertise his Europe trip again. This time, he was able to fit two trips into the Summer season, therefore doubling his business, and Contiki Holidays was ‘born’. The first tours were all booked by 19-29 year olds so right from the start Contiki was all about youth travel.

Contiki’s reputation for great vacations continued to grow and ten years later there were over 50 Contiki buses on the roads of Europe as tours began in Russia, Scandinavia, Spain, Portugal and Morocco.

Built on word of mouth and the strength of our reputation, ‘Contiki’ quickly became a household name among young travelers from Australia and New Zealand while the company’s success spawned a series of imitators. During the 1970s almost 30 companies were based on Contiki’s style of touring, but as time went on, most fell by the wayside as Contiki began to thrive and prove itself to be the worlds leading tour operator for young people.

Contiki was the first tour operator for young people to move from the traditional camping style of tour to the Concept (Budget) style, staying in camping villages as well as pioneering the now popular Time Out (Superior) hotel tour style. As a result business doubled and over 20,000 people a year chose to travel with Contiki in the late 70’s with that number now roughly tripling to around 60,000 people a year.

The 1980’s too saw the brand diversify and expand into Egypt, the Middle East, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, the USA, and Canada and continue to break new ground with the introduction of focused, specialized regional tours through Europe.

In 1989 John Anderson decided to sell Contiki to Trafalgar Tours, thus creating what eventually would become The Travel Corporation, a world wide combination of tour operators, travel and tourism companies that now carry over 1 million people a year.

Contiki’s family of companies operates high quality brands such as Trafalgar Tours, Insight Vacations, Busabout, AAT Kings, Radical Travel and Evan Evans Tours (among many others) with all our brands enjoying excellent reputations while being dedicated to providing exceptional quality, value and service.

In the past decade Contiki has continued as the undisputed industry leader adding Mediterranean cruising to its options, extending its North American program, the creation of the Getaway program for more independent travelers and opening an entire new line of resorts offering a totally new experience for 18-35’s.

For over 45 years Contiki has continued listening and responding to its customers while remaining the unquestionable world wide leader in tours for 18-35’s. Our evolution has made us the largest, most experienced tour operator in the business and while others have come and gone, Contiki has continued to operate quality, value for money and most of all, fun tours that cannot be beat.