The Rise & Fall of Thomas cook

Thomas Cook, the world’s oldest travel company, declared bankruptcy. After 178 years of being the biggest British name in holiday booking and inventing guided tours, the firm has gone bust.

Founder Thomas Cook was a pioneer in the travel industry in the 19th century, just like Amazon or Google has been in the tech world in recent decades.Thomas cook was the first company that started off with packaged tours as cook thought that everyone wants to keep it simple,like you get the itinerary and accommodation planned by his company even before you travel.

As another innovative offering, Thomas Cook issued traveler’s cheques in 1874, allowing his customers to exchange foreign currencies in other countries. Travelers were struggling to exchange different currencies back then, and it was unsafe to carry too much cash. Amid this situation, Thomas Cook offered a solution that became very popular.

The network that Thomas cook build can be compared to present times Alibaba,Amazon,Google or other Tech giants of present. So what lead to the fall of Thomas Cook?Perhaps the reason could be  in the recent past as Thomas Cook couldn’t keep up with the evolving global travel industry, which has been disrupted by internet technology.Today travellers can easily book hotels and purchase airline tickets online, with all the price information and service details available on the internet. They may not need the service from travel agencies as they can arrange their own trips at ease with abundant information available online.

The reason of Fall of the travel giant could also be due to the reason that most of there customers where offline customers or the one who choosed the desk and people over the desktop screen.However, that doesn’t mean that travel agencies are doomed as a business altogether. The firms just need to innovate in order to keep up with changing demands of travelers. A good example would be Japan-focused EGL Tours, which has expanded into hotel and resort development business in the country and offers tailor-made trips for Hongkongers to capture a niche market.One of the reason would also be Brexit. You can track Thomas Cook's current problems back to 2007 when it merged with Airtours' parent MyTravel, which, although profitable at the time, had nearly collapsed four years earlier. The merger between two of the UK's largest travel companies was supposed to create one strong powerhouse, instead it seems to have created an unwieldy monster that dragged them both down.

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