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Travel Trade – Historical Perspective

Module 001: Travel Trade – Historical

Course Learning Outcomes:

Introduction
The business of travel agency has undergone significant changes in the last two
decades. Gone are the days when there were no formal travel intermediaries to help
travelers visit places of interest. Several travel obstacles discouraged people to travel
distance places. Only a selected few managed to travel due to their own curiosity,
motivation and spending ability. Many could not make it due to the lack of
communication network along with facilities and amenities. Leaving behind the job of
a travel agent, a destination did not even have minimum facilities to hold the visitors
for an hour long. So many changes have taken place over the centuries. Tourism
destinations are connected by modes of transport and visitors find a place of stay at
the destinations.
When modern communication system came into existence in 18th and 19th
centuries, the world could witness mass travel leading to the demand of luxury
transport and advance arrangement of stay and sightseeing. Those advance bookings
of train, ferry, bus, airlines, theater hall, entry fees, etc were organized by a person
with sound experience and information. In the beginning of travel agency business,
travel agents could help their own community members or fellow members travel
safely. Later, it became a formal business with all professional practices. Gradually,
the business has grown in such a scale that competitive multinational travel
companies have entered into this travel business. This lesson will explain the origin of
travel agency business in the world with reference to the contribution of Richard Cox
and Thomas Cook for having set up professional travel agency in the 18th and 19th
centuries respectively.

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Origin of Travel Agency Business
The nature of travel agency business is to provide holiday-related services such as
ticket booking, transfer arrangement, hotel room booking and arrangement of ground
transportation, venue selection and booking for MICE activities. The scope of business
of travel agents was narrow and confined to selected services. Moreover, the business
was managed with small investment. It was risky business as it was depending upon
the natural and socio-political along with cultural factors.
The amount of profit was too little to attract new entrants to do this business. A
number of restrictions were imposed by the government on travel agents and tour
operators for entry into tour operation business. Tour operators had no choice, but to
deal with other problems like confirmation of hotel rooms, safety in travel, quality of
foods, travel documents, volatile political system, language differences, cultural
differences, cumbersome and tedious travelling, long journey, etc. However, invention
of railways and steamship as a common mode of transport changed the perceptions of
people on travelling distance places.
Thus, Thomas Cook could emerge as the first professional Travel Agent in the wake
of introduction of affordable railway services in the United Kingdom. However, prior
to Thomas Cook, Cox & Kings introduced travel business in UK. You will read about
the contributions of these two big travel agents along with a couple of other travel
agents in Europe, USA and India in this lesson
Cox & Kings
Cox & Kings in the second half of eighteenth century became pioneer in providing
travel logistics to British Army stationed at various locations in the world. It claims to
be the oldest travel agency in the world. The origin started from the appointment for
making arrangements of auxiliary services to the First Foot Guards as Regimental
Agent. Richard Cox worked under the mentor of Colonel Lord Ligonier for providing
necessary services to the Army Officers in the overseas. The Company became the
most reliable military agents for British Government. In the subsequent period,
business got expanded to banking, shipping and tour operation business.
Being a 250-year old company serving leisure and business travelers, it maintains
business and operational networks across the world. Over the years, the company has
created a huge brand and credibility in the outbound travel market. Its international
offices and representatives are located in UK, USA, Japan, Germany, Spain, South
Africa, Russia, Italy, Sweden and Australia.
Cox & Kings was renamed as the Eastern Carrying Company Limited as per the
Indian Companies Act, VII of 1913. Fortunately, the company got back its generic
name as Cox & Kings in 1950. It was registered as Private Limited Company in 2001
and an enlisted company of National Stock Exchange of India. It is a premium brand in
offering all travel related services in the Indian subcontinent. About 5000 trained staff
members are working at 14 offices, 25 associated offices and 44 associate offices in
India. In addition to its headquarters in Mumbai, 12 branch offices are located in New
Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Ahmadabad, Kochi, Hyderabad, Pune, Goa, Nagpur
and Jaipur.
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Travel Trade – Historical Perspective

The company offers competitive tour packages to suit all segments of Indian
customers. Its areas of operation include leisure and corporate holidays, insurance
and frontier formalities. Its outbound package tours are promoted in the brand name
of Duniya Dekho. This particular package has become so attractive due to packaging,
pricing and marketing strategies. It is a group tour comprising destinations in
Australia, New Zealand, Europe, US, Canada, Far-East, Middle East, South Africa and
Mauritius.
Cox & Kings is a professionally managed Public Limited Company working for FIT
and GIT travel as one-stop travel solutions point. Other services include charter
flights, cruises, foreign exchange and MICE. The Flexihols is an outbound holiday for
FIT customized for independent travelers wishing to travel to Europe, Far East,
America, Australia, New Zealand, and Africa. At the same time, many trade fare
packages are also promoted for traders, exporters, importers and manufacturers to
organize technical visits, factory visits, and buyer-seller meets. For example, Cox &
Kings organized package tours for 75 corporate houses in 2006.
It is a recognized active member of TAAI, IATA, PATA, ASTA, IATO, ICCA and ICPB
Charter. The Government of India, Ministry of Tourism conferred on Cox & Kings as
the Best Conference Agent for consecutive seven years. Radius is a business associate
to maintain its operations across 4,640 branches around the world. The company
acquired Holiday Break PLC for GBP 323.43 million in 2011 and the CVCI private
equity investment has been made in Cox & Kings Ltd’s UK Subsidiary 2012. Reserve
Bank of India (RBI) has granted the Company as Category II Foreign Exchange
License. It works with authorized dealer’s foreign exchange nominated banks.
Thomas Cook and Its Origin
Thomas Cook is known to have aroused interests to help people in England
undertake travel within the country or neighbouring country. The 9th June, 1841 is a
red letter day in the history of travel trade in the world. On this day, Thomas Cook
walked from Harborough to Leicester to attend a temperance meeting and he
stumbled upon with an idea of arranging train tickets for the members of Temperance
Society where he was serving as an evangelist and Baptist book seller. He started his
carrier as a Cabinet Maker. A 32-year old cabinet-maker could become world’s
founder professional travel agent. He achieved many milestones during his lifetime
and many were achieved by his son John Mason Cook.
Thomas Cook was much worried about the Victorian social problems due to the
consumption of heavy alcohol. He thought of bringing some changes with the travel
that could be possible due to invention of railway system. Thomas Cook was the first
travel agent who introduced hotel coupons, circular notes, credit cards and advance
reservation as part of its travel innovations. Thomas Cook showed the path of travel
business to other contemporary travel agents with his organized package tour for
leisure tourists. His pleasure and continental travel are now being studied by many
new-age entrepreneurs in travel trade.
First Excursion

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 The history of professional travel agency business started with a day-long excursion
tour for his 570 friends in the Temperance Society from Leicester to Loughborough in
1841. He took the services of the British Railway. All his friends were charged one
shilling for this excursion. That excursion tour was accompanied with a band to play
typical hams and a picnic lunch of hams along with the afternoon tea for refreshment.
Thus, the successful conduct of the first excursion tour by Thomas Cook led to
introducing all-inclusive package tour. Subsequently, a series of trips were conducted
between Leicester, Nottingham, Derby and Birmingham on behalf of Local
Temperance Societies and Sunday Schools to provide experience of train travel.
Thomas Cook described the first excursion as Enthusiastic Philanthropy as he did not
have any intention of making money. He was printing posters and hand bills to
facilitate people to travel comfortably.
Establishment of Modern Travel Agency
The beginning of the establishment of modern travel agency in the world started
with the railway journey from Leicester, Nottingham and Derby to Liverpool. He made
some profits from this trip. The first mass tour across England with entertainment
activities began in 1845 to provide value-for-money package.
Sir Joseph Paxton, architect of the Crystal Palace, persuaded Thomas Cook to devote
himself to bringing workers from Yorkshire and the Midlands to London for the Great
Exhibition of 1851. The untapped opportunity was grabbed by Thomas Cook with a
lot of determination and enthusiasm.
Thomas Cook conducted tours for 150,000 people to visit the Great Exhibition in
Hyde Park from Yorkshire and the Midlands in 1851 followed by the first continental
tour in 1855. He accompanied two landmark tours to the International Exhibition
from Harwich to Antwerp, Brussels, Cologne, Frankfurt, Heidelberg, Strasbourg and to
Paris.
Travel Innovations
Thomas Cook introduced Hotel Coupons in 1868 to help customers check in hotels
without any hassle. Hotels also honoured the hotel coupons issued by Thomas Cook. It
reduced the cumbersome procedures of payments through cash. Hotels accepted the
coupons for providing rooms and other allied services such as food, entertainment,
transport etc. Hotels were benefited from the coupons as bulk numbers of rooms
were booked in advance and it was only transaction. Thomas Cook in turn received
commission from hotels as both maintained the accounts of their periodic
transactions.
Thomas Cook introduced Circular Note in 1874 to help customers travel safely.
Circular Notes were accepted across the hotels, restaurants and transport operators
at several tourism destinations and cities in the Europe and the USA. The Cook’s
Circular Note got circulated in New York and it was treated as an early invention of
traveler’s cheque in the world. More particularly, the circular notes were easily
exchanged against the local currency that provided much relief to the travelers in
meeting the contingency expenditures like shopping, tips, transfer, extra services, etc.
Package Tour for Middle Class
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Travel Trade – Historical Perspective

The massive industrialization in the mid 19th century made massive impact on the
increase in income and consumption. It created sizable middle-class people with
much disposable income. Taking the advantage of the trends, Thomas Cook took the
benefits of rising middle-class customers when customized package tours were
designed to suit their travel needs. Those middle-class customers demanded for
visiting destinations in Switzerland and Italy. He negotiated with innkeepers and
hoteliers to provide rooms and meals at good prices.
Tour Across Intra-Continental
Thomas Cook continued to expand his business in Europe too. He conducted Grand
Circular Tours to Brussels, Cologne, the Rhine, Heidelberg, Baden-Baden, Strasbourg
and Paris, with return trip to London via Le Havre or Dieppe. He undertook the
familiarization tours to Switzerland in June 1863 to visit the places of interest, contact
hotels and innkeepers. He accompanied sixty affluent class clients and conducted the
tour to Geneva. Thomas Cook organized trips in the Northern and Western Europe in
1863.
With the co-operation of the Paris, Lyons and Mediterranean Railways, Thomas
Cook began to issue Circular Train Tickets (in both English and French) between
Paris and the Alps. He then conducted the first circular tours to Switzerland, after
having made an immediate success. He also arranged the package tour across the
Alps. The first Italian tours organized in the summer of 1864 during which Thomas
Cook escorted two large groups. One group was taken to Florence and parts of
central Italy and the other one was accompanied to Rome and Naples.
Thomas Cook undertook an exploratory trip to the North America in 1865 for the
sake of gathering information about the transport, accommodation, food,
sightseeing, safety and security, etc. The Company extended its operation to Egypt
and Palestine in the year 1869 in order to cater the demand for visiting Pyramids in
Egypt and religious visit to Jerusalem. He managed to develop a system of tours that
covered 4,000 miles of railways journey. The objective of aligning with the AMTRK
helped in conducting safe and affordable package tour in the USA.
Great Journey
That trip was practically possible to travel to Egypt via China in 1869 following the
opening of the Suez Canal and the completion of a rail network linking the East and
West coasts of America. Finally, Thomas Cook and his small party managed to travel
across the Atlantic Ocean by steamship to discover a new route of world. In 1869, he
conducted his first party up the river Nile with the help of two steamers. He set out
for the Round-the-World-Tour from Leicester in 1872 when he reached at the age of
63.
They travelled from New York to San Francisco by rail. They cruised to Japan
followed by to China across the Inland Sea. He visited Singapore, Ceylon and India.
While leaving Mumbai (then Bombay), they crossed the Indian Ocean and the Red
Sea to Cairo. He travelled back to London from Cairo, Egypt.
Thomas Cook alone set off on an extended tour of Egypt and Palestine. Finally, he
reached back home after traveling through Turkey, Greece, Italy and France. It was a
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 222 - day World Tour. He was speechless after seeing the Great Wall of China, the Taj
Mahal and the Pyramid. The world tour was a great achievement for expansion of
business to different parts of the world. He gathered information about the people,
culture, political systems, economic systems, facilities, amenities, transport
connectivity, etc.
Free Independent Travelers (FIT) started buying packages from Thomas Cook.
There were more demands of FITs to buy the Round-the-World Package Tour.
Independent travelers visited those places explored by Thomas Cook and his party.
Some of them traveled to Asia via Australia and New Zealand rather than China and
Japan.
Second Generation Thomas Cook Business
Thomas Cook was very fortunate to have his son John Mason Cook as an able
successor to manage promotion, marketing and administration of company affairs.
Mr. Cook could manage the Thomas Cook’s business empire during the World Tour.
His son took the control of Thomas Cook business after the head office got shifted to
Ludgate Circus.
Mr. Cook went for expansion of business to different countries and he took the
decisions at a time when telegraphy was in the beginning and telephone was not
invented.
Mr. Cook set up overseas editions of “The Excursionist”. It was the newspaper
launched by Thomas Cook in 1851 to educate customers about the places interest in
France, Germany, India, Australasia, America and the Far East in the package tour.
The newspaper was renamed as “The Traveller’s Gazette” in May 1902. It continued
to be published until 1939.
John Mason Cook’s Remarkable Contribution
The British Government appointed John Mason Cook in 1884 to organize a relief
expedition up the Nile to rescue General Gordon from Khartoum. Arrangements
were made for the movement of 18,000 troops, nearly 40,000 tons of supplies,
40,000 tons of coal and 800 whale boats. Mr. Cook undertook The Gordon Relief
Expedition for the British Government as a part of social service to the nation. Mr.
Cook and his Egyptian managers supervised the entire operation. Despite all the
efforts, Khartoum fell in January 1885 and Gordon was killed.
Merger and Acquisition
Thomas Cook and John Mason Cook died successively during the 1890s when the
company got consolidated its operations worldwide. Mr. Cook’s three sons Frank
Henry, Ernest Edward and Thomas Albert could manage the operation.
They introduced winter sports holidays, tours by motor car and commercial air
travel. The company was registered as Thomas Cook & Son Ltd in 1924. The office
headquarters was shifted from Ludgate Circus to the aristocratic residential area at
Berkeley Street in Mayfair in 1926 Later, the headquarters of Thomas Cook and Son
Ltd was used as the Centre of London Society.
Thomas Cook & Son Ltd was sold to the Belgian Compagnie International edes
WagonsLits et des Grands Express Européens in 1928. The Wagons Lits was a
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Travel Trade – Historical Perspective

leading operator of most of Europe’s luxury sleeping cars, including the Orient
Express.
The Wagons-Lits headquarters in Paris was seized by British forces and Mr. Cook’s
British assets were requisitioned by the British Government immediately after the
outbreak of World War II. A deal was struck to sell the company to Britain’s Four
Mainline Railway Companies.
Thomas Cook & Son Ltd struck a deal with Wagons-Lits to hold 25% stake in
overseas business. The Nationalized British Railways has taken over the company in
1948. In 1972, Thomas Cook & Son Ltd was taken over by a consortium of Midland
Bank, Trust House Forte and the Automobile Association. A new standardized
corporate logo was conceived and introduced. Fortunately, Thomas Cook managed
to overcome that period and survived the recession in 1970. As a result of which,
Thomas Cook enhanced its reputation for providing excellent service by launching a
Money Back Guarantee scheme in 1974.
Thomas Cook began to concentrate on its long-haul tours program by acquiring
Rankin Kuhn Travel in 1982. It closed the operation of short-haul travel market in
1988. The company made a comeback to the core short hauls package tour market in
1996 after it acquired Sun world.
Thomas Cook family members celebrated 150 years of its long journey in 1991.
The company was acquired by Westdeutsche Landes bank (West LB). It is the
Germany’s third largest bank and the LTU Group became the Germany’s leading
charter airline in 1992. Thomas Cook Ltd. became a wholly-owned subsidiary of
West LB in 1995.
Thomas Cook & Son Ltd. got benefited from the Post-World War holiday boom,
which witnessed one million British nationals travelling abroad by 1950. The
Company set up a Business Travel Service (BTA) and renovated the holiday camp
at Prestatyn (which had opened shortly before the outbreak of war). Although
Cook’s remained the largest and most successful company in the industry, but its
dominance in the ravel market was subsequently being contested by the
emergence of new travel firms.

References and Supplementary Materials

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