Anthropologists tell us that ancient man was a migrant, traveling wherever food, good water, and a more secure cave could be found. Man evolved into a trader bartering pretty pebbles with a neighboring tribe for the exchange of goods and that quest for wealth and profit led to great explorers like Marco Polo who with the help of tremendous personal wealth and sponsorship explored the globe in search of greater wealth and good ways to get it. Travel was an expensive, dangerous, personal or business decision where people made their own arrangements for transportation to take them where they wanted to go.
One way to examine the start of travel as an industry is to look at the history and beginnings of the oldest and still existent travel agency, Thomas Cook & Son. Thomas Cook, a Baptist missionary, was born in 1808. He was a member of the Temperance Society and traveled the countryside on foot or by horse preaching against the evils of drink. In 1841 he was helping to plan the society's meeting which was to be held in Loughborough, England ten miles from its base in Leicester. He had heard of Richard Trevithick's steam-carriages and railways and was inspired to actually market the society's meeting as a "convention," rent the new-fangled trains from the Midland Railways, print and pass out advertising for the trip, and provide a snack and music for the ride. So on July 5, 1841, 570 happy temperance supporters rode in nine open steam carriages on the first arranged tour. Cook continued to arrange these tours for the Temperance Society for four years as a volunteer (Lizon 8-9).
He then reasoned he could make a living at tour arranging, and in 1845 he opened the first commercial travel agency. Thomas Cook is responsible for a lot of firsts that are still in practice in today's travel agencies. He created and published a travel magazine and colorful travel brochures to advertise his services. He devised the industry...