THOMAS Cook has marked its 165th anniversary by releasing new research into the package holiday and how the British foreign holiday has changed over the years.
From early pioneers in the 1850s who wouldn’t be seen dead without their bowler hats and bonnets to the sarong and bikini-clad sun worshippers of today, much has changed since Thomas Cook’s first organised trip – a rail journey from Leicester to Loughborough in 1841.
A study of prices has revealed the typical summer holiday today costs around £669 compared to £602 in the 1970s – a drop of around 40% in real terms.
It’s a far cry from the average cost of £8 in the 1850s when popular entertainment amounted to strolls and talks about local culture. Then the price equated to a whopping 16% of the typical £50 a year wage.
France, along with Belgium and Germany, topped the most popular destinations in the 1850s, a place it lost to Egypt at the turn of the century. Spain led the way during the package heydays of the 1970s.
Thomas Cook chief executive Manny Fontenla-Novoa said: “When Thomas Cook started in 1841 he would never have believed all these years on his name would appear on stores, aircraft and resorts all over the world.”
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