Tauck is a river cruise line offering a choice of voyages along the Rhine, Danube, Rhone, Seine, Maas and Moselle rivers, though as a company, it has a number of different strings to its bow, offering land journeys, safaris and small-ship ocean cruises.
Tauck is a company with a lot of experience to call on, having been founded in 1925 by Arthur Tauck. Tauck, then 27 and a travelling salesman, hit upon the idea of charging six guests travelling with him through New England and Canada, giving them time to relax in the afternoons in the various locations he visited while he conducted his business. Tauck initially considered this as no more than a one-off enterprise, but reputation of the guests’ experience spread by word of mouth and, following numerous inquiries about possible future excursions, Tauck reconsidered and thus Tauck Tours was born shortly after.
In 1958, Arthur Tauck Jr, succeeded his father in running the company , who subsequently expanded it to offer more domestic, then later international destinations to its roster. Tauck Jr is considered today as an industry innovator and indeed he was the first to introduce combined motorcoach and air travel, the first international charter airtour packages in Nova Scotia and was also responsible for pioneering the concept of Heli-Hiking in the Canadian Rockies.
Today, Tauck is still a family-run enterprise and Arthur Tauck Jr now serves as the company’s chairman, with four of his five children having had or still having roles within the company. Tauck now offers over 100 different all-inclusive journeys in more than 60 countries worldwide and its river cruise arm enjoys significant success in a competitive field, having been voted World’s Best River Cruise Line by the readers of Travel &Leisure magazine in 2011 and 2013.
By Simon Brotherton
Google