Thomas Cook was a tourism visionary who first started organised tourism in the 19th century, and the modern travel industry is in debt for much of its development to Cook. Efforts started from humble beginnings, which laid the foundations for a global travel industry, which changed dramatically over the last two centuries. This paper gives an account of the life of Thomas Cook and his contributions to the travel industry, besides a discussion about how the industry has evolved.
General Facts: The Life of Thomas Cook
Thomas Cook was born on the 22nd of November 1808 in Derbyshire, England. He grew up in an extremely impoverished family and had to leave school at a young age to support his family. Cook got jobs first as a gardener, then as a cabinet maker. It was while serving as a Baptist minister, due to his firm Christian faith, that his idea for organised travel emerged.
In the early part of the 19th century, travel became primarily an elite privilege. The industrial revolution was going on at high steam, and with the newly completed railway networks, transportation became faster and more available than ever before. Cook took advantage of this to make travel cheap and accessible to all, wanting to work for social reform through education and experience outside of one’s backyard.
The Birth of Organised Tourism
Thomas Cook organised his first excursion on July 5, 1841. He arranged to take 570 people by train from Leicester to Lough borough for a temperance meeting. For one shilling a head, return, not only the train fare was incorporated but food and entertainment. This was quite a revolutionary idea in those days, so it was the birth of organised tourism.
The success of this venture encouraged Cook to arrange further trips, and he soon diversified into many other fields. By the mid-1840s, he was running tours to most parts of the United Kingdom, and in 1851 ran excursions to the Great Exhibition in London. His business model relied on offering economies of scale that could be achieved by negotiating bulk discounts from railways and hotels; hence, he could offer package deals that were much cheaper than the total of their individually booked elements. He is often said to have invented the package tour.
Expansion and International Travel
The business of Thomas Cook continued to flourish, and in the 1850s, he expanded his operations, including international travel. In 1855, he organised his first continental round—the British tourists went to Paris to see the International Exhibition. Others were following—Italy, Switzerland, and Germany, proto-typical cases of places included in the new tours.
By the 1860s, he had begun running tours to Egypt and the Holy Land. Consequently, mass tourism to those regions began. His company also pioneered travellers’ checks in 1874. This was another innovation important for opening up international travel to more people, especially at a time of much insecurity, affording the traveller a safe and accessible way of carrying money while travelling abroad.
The Revolution of the Travel Industry
Three of the most significant changes in the industry since the time of Thomas Cook himself came into his hands. In the last decades of the 19th century and the first three decades of the 20th, transatlantic travel became more accessible with ocean liners, and international tourism began to increase. The real revolution, though, changed the industry at mid-century: the introduction of commercial air travel made it easy and relatively cheap to travel enormous distances.
Indeed, tourism began to rise in the post-World War II era with increasing incomes, investment in transportation infrastructure, and the rise of mass-market travel companies. Indeed, the development of jet aircraft in the 1950s and 1960s quickly facilitated air travel inexpensively and led to global tourism.
The travel industry was once again revolutionised, but this time not until the late 20th century, with the entry of the internet. For the first time, consumers could book flights, hotels, and vacation packages via the Internet through online travel agencies like Expedia and Booking.com rather than interact with the traditional travel agent. This evolution has continued in booking online, which has grown since a greater number of travellers now plan their journeys online and book them.
Conclusion
Above all, Thomas Cook was a pioneer in the tourism industry in reality, and his vision to make travel available to all has stood the test of time. The travel business has gone through swifter changes in the last few decades, courtesy of the impacts of technology, changing consumer behaviour, and globalisation in tourism. Despite the many trials and disruptions within the industry, the ideals that Thomas Cook pioneered—money-affordable, organised travel—remain at the core of how people travel today.
