Thomas Cook

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Template:Redirect Image:Thomascooklogo.gifThomas Cook (22 November 1808 – 18 July 1892) of Melbourne, Derbyshire, founded the travel agency that bears his name

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The Beginnings

On the 5 July 1841 he organised a rail excursion for 500 temperance campaigners from Leicester to the nearby town of Loughborough. Excursions to Liverpool (1845),Scotland (1846) and the Great Exhibition in London (1851) followed, the latter seeing 165,000 tickets sold. In 1872 he organised a round-the-world tour, lasting 222 days. When Cook began organising tours to the Middle East, the boost he gave tourism there led schoolchildren in Aswan to be told that Cook's son, John, was "the second-greatest man in Egypt". In 1890, Cook's company sold over 3.25 million tickets. <ref>Coleman, Anthony (ed., 1999). Millennium, p. 231, 233. Transworld Publishers. ISBN 0593-044789.</ref>

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Company Ownership

Ownership of his company, Thomas Cook and Son, remained with his family until 1928.

In 1999 the Carlson Leisure Group merged with Thomas Cook. In mid-2000 Preussag acquired Thomas Cook's rival Thomson Travel and was forced to sell its 50% stake in Thomas Cook by regulatory authorities. In 2002 Thomas Cook was acquired by the German company C&N Touristic AG, which later changed its name to Thomas Cook AG. The group is jointly owned by Lufthansa and Karstadt.

In the UK, Thomas Cook conforms to the model of a 'vertically integrated travel company' operating an airline, a retail arm and also a tour operator. This tour operator division has previously been known as Thomas Cook Tour Operations but in early 2006 was restructured as the 'Holidays Division', incorporating the previously separate Thomas Cook Signature brand alongside the Thomas Cook, JMC and Sunset brands. The 'Specialist Products' division includes Uptrips (including the Club 18-30 brand), Style, Neilson Active Holidays and Sunworld Ireland.

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