The Accident of Tourism

Thomas Cook did not set out to create the modern tourism industry. He was a committed temperance activist who believed that alcohol was the scourge of the working class. On July 5, 1841, he organized a group of people to travel by train from Leicester to Loughborough to attend a rally.

• A Modest Start: The group consisted of a few hundred people who paid one shilling each for an eleven mile journey.
• From Prohibition to Package Tours: The trip was a success, leading Cook to realize that the working class had an appetite for affordable travel. He began expanding his services, eventually organizing international excursions.

Cook's legacy is ironic. His attempt to promote sobriety led to the birth of the global tourism economy, an industry often associated with leisure and, quite frequently, the very drinking he sought to eliminate. His life serves as a bizarre reminder that some of history's most massive shifts in behavior began as simple, localized attempts to steer society in a different direction.