Why a post-WWII turf war still matters for consular affairs today: travel agencies, ICEM, and the birth of a migration industry
By Ioannis Limnios-Sekeris (Panteion University)
For an extended version of this article, Limnios-Sekeris, I. (2025), ‘An entrepreneurial turf war: travel agencies, ICEM, and the migration industry since the 1950s’, Business History: 1–22. doi: 10.1080/00076791.2025.2558764
Long before migration became dominated by visa regimes, biometric controls, and international governance frameworks, cross-border mobility was organised through markets. Travel agencies—often small, entrepreneurial businesses—were once central actors to making migration possible. In the decades after the Second World War, however, these private intermediaries suddenly found themselves competing with a new international organisation: the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration (ICEM), today’s International Organization for Migration (IOM).
This was not a minor institutional adjustment; it was an entrepreneurial turf war over who would control migration as a service. Its legacy still shapes the hybrid migration systems in which consular professionals operate today.
Travel agencies as early migration infrastructure
Until the mid-twentieth century, travel agencies were not merely ticket sellers. They served as migration infrastructure and intermediaries. For aspiring migrants, especially those with limited literacy or bureaucratic knowledge, agencies were often the primary point of contact with the state.
Agents handled documentation, arranged medical examinations, prepared migrants for consular interviews, secured visas and sponsorship letters, booked accommodation in port cities, and coordinated overseas transport. In practice, they translated state requirements into actionable steps. As migration became increasingly bureaucratic after 1945, many would have found it nearly impossible without this mediation.
For consular offices, travel agencies were both useful and problematic. They reduced the administrative burden by pre-screening applicants, but they also created information asymmetries. Consulates rarely knew how much migrants paid, what promises were made, or how far agents stretched—or crossed—the law.
Migration as a commercial service
What do we mean by ‘migration as a commercial service’? Simply put, migration was something you purchased.
Agencies earned income through service fees and, importantly, commissions from shipping lines and airlines. The more tickets they sold, the greater their reward. This commission-based system incentivised aggressive client recruitment and creative problem-solving, but it also fostered practices that blurred the line between facilitation and exploitation.
By the 1950s, these businesses had formed what can meaningfully be called a post-WWII ‘migration industry’: a network of agents, sub-agents, transport companies, doctors, and intermediaries connecting countries of origin and destination. Migration flows were shaped not only by law and policy, but also shaped by profit motives, competition, and market access.
When did this change? Post-WWII mass migration and ICEM
The turning point came after 1945. Europe faced mass displacement, unemployment, and demographic pressure, while overseas countries sought labour to drive post-WWII growth. Migration expanded dramatically in scale, along with efforts to manage it internationally.
Founded in 1951 during the Cold War, ICEM was created to organise and subsidise migration from Europe to overseas Western countries. It chartered ships and aircraft, bulk-booked space on commercial vessels and airlines, processed migrants directly, and subsidised migration with funds from its member states, asking migrants to pay only a fraction of what private agents charged.
For migrants, ICEM opened new opportunities. For travel agencies, it posed an existential threat, breaking their monopoly over overseas migration almost overnight.
ICEM versus travel agencies: conflict and adaptation
ICEM took over functions that travel agencies had long considered their own: migrant selection, documentation, medical screening, and transport. Unsurprisingly, agencies resisted.
Across Europe, they lobbied governments, mobilised the press, and accused ICEM of unfair competition. Why, they asked, should an international organisation perform the work of licensed private businesses—often tax-exempt and subsidised?
Yet resistance gradually gave way to adaptation. ICEM needed transport companies; travel agencies needed access to shipping space. In some cases, ICEM allocated surplus berths to agencies for their self-paying clients. Agencies, in turn, benefited indirectly from the migration chains ICEM helped create: more migrants abroad meant more family reunification cases, more travel, and eventually more tourism. Competition gave way to selective cooperation, even if mistrust remained.
Consulates caught between institutions and markets
Throughout this period, consular offices found themselves caught in the middle. They faced pressure from agencies eager to speed up applications, migrants confused by overlapping pathways, and ICEM asserting its international mandate. Informal practices flourished: agents received advance information, intermediaries promised ‘inside access’, and migrants were sometimes pushed to switch between institutional and commercial channels.
Purely legal or procedural control proved insufficient. Migration governance operated through negotiation, discretion, and constant adjustment. Consular authority remained central—but never exclusive.
Why this history matters today
This post-WWII entrepreneurial turf war offers a crucial lesson: migration systems have never been purely public. Today’s visa consultants, recruiters, education agents, relocation firms, and digital platforms inherit the same logic that once shaped travel agencies’ work. International organisations still combine humanitarian mandates with operational imperatives. States continue to rely on private intermediaries while trying to regulate them.
For consular professionals, this history explains why hybrid systems persist—and why tensions between public authority and private mediation are not anomalies, but structural features of migration governance.
Understanding migration as both a political process and a commercial service clarifies the realities of consular work today. The post-WWII past reminds us that markets do not merely operate around migration systems; they help build them.
About the author
Ioannis Limnios-Sekeris holds a PhD from the Department of Political Science and History at Panteion University, Greece, awarded in 2023. His dissertation examines the relationship between migration, international organisations, and the private sector from 1951 to 1980. In 2020, Ioannis was awarded the John Scholes Transport History Research Essay prize for his original research work in transport history, and in 2023, his dissertation was shortlisted by the European Business History Association (EBHA) as one of the three best dissertations in business history. Ioannis’ research interests include migration history, business history, maritime and aviation history, and the history of international organisations.
The views expressed are solely those of the author(s), not of the Center.