My family was involved in the travel industry so although young I had a ringside seat of the changes occuring. It was an exciting time. The liberalisation of airfares was the big driver. Up until then flying on holiday was out of reach of the normal family. Flying was in the hands of the state carriers who largely pooled revenues between themselves. Fares were set by Iata, inflexible and very expensive. The big carriers BEA, Iberia etc. fought a vigorous rearguard action to keep the status quo.
The first inclusive tour flights were to places that the national carriers had little interest in serving. Fares were sold stricly in conjunction with accomodation thus the term package holiday and the actual price was not shown on the paper ticket. There were some interesting destinations some of which like Corsica remain niche markets. The spanish costas and Majorca have grown from these early days to the huge industry we now know.
Companies like Autair, later becoming Court Line played an increasing role.
They were early adopters of vertical integration. The parent company owned the holiday company Clarkson, the airline Court Line and in some cases the
hotels. Sadly they went bust in a big way in 1974, still remembered on other
parts of this forum.
The big carriers like BEA introduced their own charter services but largely failed to make a big success. Companies like Britannia, owned by Thomson holidays the big player in the UK followed the trend and became extremely successful. A period of enormous growth started, with prices that completely
changed the holiday industry.
Peronally I remember flying to Palma on a turboprop in about 1963, visiting the cockpit and deciding that was the job for me.