#ThrowbackThursday with Jill Wykes

In the early 1990s I was very involved with the Canadian Association of Tour Operators (CATO), and this was in the tumultuous early days for the organization, when the membership occasionally strayed into questionable activities. Today, of course, they are no longer a bunch of rogue tour ops and they know better.

The history of CATO is interesting itself…it actually started many decades ago when a major tour operator failed in Ontario. In those days, the tour ops, along with all suppliers, were all members of ACTA in their various categories. When this particular tour operator failed, the ACTA Ontario board decided to ask its retail members to pitch-in financially to resurrect the operator (yes, I know!). That was it for the tour operators, who were salivating at picking up all that market share, and so they set up their own association.

Back in the early days when CATO was just getting started, it was accused of taking inappropriate anti-competitive action. It was alleged that CATO members used their influence to try to stop hoteliers from supporting a new, upstart tour operator. (Perish the thought!) Well, it was not long before the Competition Bureau stumbled over this, and descended on the members and the association to thoroughly investigate.  

Let me tell you, Revenue Canada audits have a bad reputation, but having lived through Competition Bureau audits, I’d say they might be worse. It seems they have carte blanche. In the end, it all went away but it set the stage for extreme caution going forward.

But there was a very funny part to the story. The Competition Bureau investigators arrived at all the CATO members’ offices simultaneously on Oct. 31 early in the morning. At many tour companies, it was a tradition to dress up in costume on that day for Halloween.  One company president, who shall go nameless, turned up for work in a Big Bird costume, only to find two strangers (the Bureau investigators) sitting in his office.  

One of the investigators asked the executive: “And who are you sir?”

And he answered: “I’m (expletive) Big Bird, who the (expletive) are you?”

...Or so the story goes.