The Father of Modern Tourism - Thomas Cook🎩- History Series #1

Don't just book it. Thomas Cook it!

A renowned and trusted brand in the tourism industry - Thomas Cook💯

You will see how the brand’s story goes hand in hand with the history of tourism.💫

All the way through the 17th and 18th centuries, the travel industry has recorded many different pages of transitions - cultural studies, pilgrimages, and business migration. You can refer to a brief detail about the same here.

The 19th century witnessed the first travel agencies, which opened for more leisure and recreational purposes.

One of the pioneers was Thomas Cook & Son🥳, who offered travel excursions and holidays for groups. This was the precursor concept of today’s travel packages - where they offer food + accommodation + transport as combo offers.

During that period, going on trips was an expensive undertaking, and social division played a negative role. People traveled by old open carriages through underdeveloped roads and had no idea of time zones and weather patterns. Accommodation and food options were not abundant and organized.

Thomas Cook used this space to venture out into a new dimension of travel - packaged options at discounted prices.

How did it start?✨

Cook spent his childhood as a gardener, tourist guide, and cabinet maker, earning whatever he could. He was also a part of a Baptist Missionary and was deeply inspired by the thoughts of ‘temperance’ - a movement against the consumption of alcohol.

In 1841, he executed the first-ever organized travel recorded in history, where he took around 500 people in a train for a rally for his missionary; he ended up earning 1 shelling from each of the passengers. This laid the seeds for a new brand, which shook the entire industry in the future.🔥

What next? Let’s tour🤟🏼

Following this, Cook arranged many excursions to Liverpool, Scotland, and London.

One of the packages was the Grand Circular Tour of Belgium, Germany, and finally Paris for an exhibition. 

By 1865s, Thomas Cook's office on the famous Fleet Street of London became a landmark. Cook started refining his business by selling books, tour guides, souvenirs, luggage, and other travel essentials, alongside package trips.

His son, John Mason Andrew Cook, partnered in the business with his father - after which the company renamed itself ‘Thomas Cook & Son’ in 1871. More commercial aspects such as the hotel coupon (which was basically a ticket for a meal or overnight stay) were implemented.

They even started touring the civil war establishments of the US. Most of the clients were Britishers for Cook. They were also involved in the military transport of the British across continents.

And then came the “Round the World Tour” in 1872. Across the Atlantic - America, Japan, India, and many other countries.

Contribution to Tourism🎁

An agenda of initiatives introduced by Cook were taken as inspiration in the later periods of travel eras.

Cook introduced the ‘circular notes’ - which was an early version of travelers’ cheques - to avoid carrying a lot of cash during travel. He also introduced travel guides - at a very early time, where all the information was recorded from his own travel experiences.

He introduced the first-ever timetable for steamships and trains in the whole of Europe, in the name of ‘Cook’s Continental Timetable’ - still published in many magazines of Europe and highly recommended by traveler writers.

Sudden Downstream ⁉️

Cook retired in 1880 and handed over the business to his 3 sons. He died in 1892 at the age of 83.

After the 1920s, the company faced a lot of sell-outs and got transferred to different hands. No one was able to carry the name preserved before that.😐

And this took the company more than 50 years to stabilize itself.

Around the 1980s, then called ‘Thomas Cook Group Ltd.’ became popular in the US. The comeback was a grand success that it became a household name easily.🌟

Around 2019, Thomas Cook got bankrupt and entered compulsory liquidation. The factors were fuel costs, financial troubles, international travel laws, etc.

The brand split into many parties across the globe. Every country’s ‘Thomas Cook’ went under different hands.

But Cook’s struggle was real - and has left us baffled with how he created one industry from scratch more than his company’s structure. 🏆

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