History of Travel Agency

and Tour Operations

The travel agency was the concept
born after the industrial revolution when
travel became more mechanized and
in easy reach of an emerging working
class. Two travel agencies – Cox and
King and Thomas Cook – were the
pioneers of mass travel
 Cox and Kings
May be considered as the oldest travel
company in history stretching back to 1758
Richard Cox founder of the agency
Worked as a clerk for General Lord Ligonier in 1740
He was exceptionally good at making contacts with
all the echelons of the army and society.
Cox and Co., the forbearer of cox and kings
In 1765, he went into partnership with Mr.
Drummond
In 1768 , his business flourished aided by the war in the
American colonies and the invasions of France.
By the nineteenth century, Cox and Kings had five
branches in United kingdom, USA, India, Egypt and
Rangoon serving by now
By 1930, he sold his Indian interests to Grindlay’s Bank
who later disinvested the travel and shipping agencies
know Cox and Kings to individual entrepreneurs.
 Cox and Kings is considered the oldest travel agency
in India
Cox and Kings now thrives as an independent tour
company with offices in the United kingdom, India,
United States and Japan.
 Thomas Cook
 May be considered to be the travel agency as we know today.
Thomas Cook founded the agency by his name in November
1841.
 Worked as a cabinet – maker
 Part-time publisher of Baptist and temperance pamphlets.
 He arranged to take a group of 570 temperance campaigners
from Leicester to a rally on Loughborough, eleven miles away.
 Arranged for the rail Company to charge one shilling per person that
included rail tickets and food on this train Journey
 1844, the midland Counties Railways company agreed to make
a permanent arrangement with him provided he found the
passengers.
In August 1845, he arranged accommodation for a
party to travel from Leicester on a tour of Scotland.
His real success came when he arranged for 165,000
people to attend the Great Exhibition.
4 years later, he planned for his 1st excursion abroad
when he took a group from Leicester to Calais to
coincide with the Paris Exhibition.
He took parties to Switzerland, Italy, Egypt and USA
He started his ‘grand circular tours’ of Europe
In 1860’s he established ‘inclusive independent
travel’,
With his only son John Mason Cook, he formed a
partnership and renamed the travel agency as
Thomas Cook and son
By this time, Cook had stopped personal tours and
became an agent for foreign or domestic mass travel.
Their business model was refined by the introduction
of the ‘hotel coupon’ in 1866 which was issued to
travelers to redeem meals or overnight stay at listed
restaurants and hotels of the company.
1865, the agency organized tours of the USA picking
us passengers from several departure points.
John Mason Cook led tours of several American Civil
War Battle Fields.
 In 1872, he provided a round-the-world trip 200 guineas
including a steamship ride across the Atlantic, a stage
coach across America, a paddle steamer to Japan and
an overland journey across China and India lasting 222
days.
 Thomas Cook retired in 1879 when his son John and his
two sons expanded the business to Egypt and the middle-
East.
 The great company changed several hands and was
nationalized in 1948.
 In 1950’s the company promoted ‘foreign holidays’ to
Italy, Spain, and Switzerland.
 The company suffered by not going into cheap holidays
which was the demand and went into decay only to be
rescued by a consortium of Trusthouse Forte, Midland Bank
and the Automobile Association who bought it from the
British Government in 1972.
 Other Notable Landmarks
 While Cox and Kings and Thomas Cook were the true pioneers, others
who emerged were Dean and Dawson and the Polytechnic Touring
Association. In 1950, Vladimir Raitz, co-founder of Horizon Holiday Group,
pioneered the first mass package holidays with Charter Flights between
Gatwick airport and Corsica. He later followed with packaged holidays
to Palma in 1952, Lourdes in 1953 and the Costa Brava and Sardinia in
1954.
 By the 1950’s and 1960’s, these cheap packaged holidays, which
included flight bookings, transfers and accommodation, provided the 1st
chance for people in the UK to have affordable holidays. During the 70s,
the industry went in decline when the second largest tour operator Court
Line collapsed leaving 50,000 tourists stranded overseas and a further
100,000 lost their booking deposits. This made consumers avoid
packaged holidays and rely on budget airlines. This led to the
consolidation of the tour operator market and now has four or five
principal tour operators only, namely Thomson Holidays, Thomas Cook
AG, Mt Travel and First Choice. Under these main operators are other
minor tour operator for different markets.
1 st Corinthians 16:14

Let all that you do

be done in Love