Public can take tour of tourism
A FASCINATING history of British tourism is going on public display for the first time in Peterborough to mark the birthday of the father of modern travel.
A FASCINATING history of British tourism is going on public display for the first time in Peterborough to mark the birthday of the father of modern travel.Thomas Cook is giving people the chance to take behind-the-scenes tours of its treasured archives in celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of its founder.
The trips, which are by appointment only, will offer glimpses of a whole host of travel memorabilia dating back to the 1840s, including Britain’s first holiday brochure and Cook’s own diaries from the first round-the-world package tour.
Spokeswoman Lizann Peppard said the company’s archives at its base in Thomas Cook Business Park in Bretton would make engrossing viewing for anyone with an interest in tourism.
She said: “It is a fascinating collection charting more than 150 years of Thomas Cook, and reveals as much about the man himself as it does about the company.
“Thomas Cook’s ideal was to organise holidays for the masses in a time when travel was the preserve of the wealthy.
“He pioneered holidays for working people and it is because of what he did that we enjoy the kind of holidays we enjoy today.”
Thomas Cook’s international travel company began in 1841 when the 32-year-old cabinet maker arranged a railway trip from Leicester to Loughborough for his fellow baptists.
After expanding his enterprise around Britain, he began making excursions into Europe in the 1850s, and took his first round-the-world trip in 1869.
Today, his company is the second largest leisure group in the UK and employs 19,000 people around the country, including 2,000 at its head office in Peterborough.
The collection also features the first “hotel coupons” – a forerunner of the travellers cheque pioneered by Cook – original holiday posters and a 3,000-year-old Egyptian sculpture gifted to the company by Arab authorities in the 1880s.
It is being opened to the public by archivist Paul Smith ahead of the 200th anniversary of Cook’s birth in November.
Mr Smith said: “If someone is interested in tourism they should come and see the old diaries and posters.
“It’s amazing what Cook achieved.
“There are very very few places that we visit today that he didn’t go to in the 19th century.
“In the 1890s we could send you anywhere – any place, any means, any route.”
n To arrange a tour of the Thomas Cook archive, e-mail paul.smith@ thomascook.com
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Monday 15 March 2010
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