Package holidays

A package tour, package vacation, or package holiday comprises transport and accommodation advertised and sold together by a vendor known as a tour operator. Other services may be provided such a rental car, activities or outings during the holiday. Transport can be via charter airline to a foreign country, and may also include travel between areas as part of the holiday. Package holidays are a form of product bundling.

Package holidays are organised by a tour operator and sold to a consumer by a travel agent. Some travel agents are employees of tour operators, others are independent.

The first organised tours dated back to Thomas Cook who, on 5 July 1841, chartered a train to take a group of temperance campaigners from Leicester to a rally in Loughborough, eleven miles away. By 1872 he was undertaking worldwide tours, albeit with small groups. His company, Thomas Cook & Son (commonly called Thomas Cook or simply "Cook's"), grew to become one of the largest and most well known travel agents before being nationalised in 1948.

With the gradual decline of visits to British seaside resorts after the Second World War, Thomas Cook & Son began promoting foreign holidays (particularly Italy, Spain, and Switzerland) in the early 1950s. Information films were shown at town halls throughout Britain. However they made a costly decision by not going into the new form of cheap holidays which combined the transport and accommodation arrangements into a single 'package'. The company went further into decline and were only rescued by a consortium buy-out on 26 May 1972.

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