Volume: 6  Number: 1  Page: 1–16  doi:10.2167/jtcc088.0

‘Moral Renovation and Intellectual Exaltation:’ Thomas Cook's Tourism as Practical Education

Trent S. Newmeyer Brock University, Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies, 500 Glenridge Avenue, St. Catharines, ON L2S 3A1, Canada

Tourism has long had significant educational potential from the enlightenment of the Grand Tour to contemporary high-school and university tours to Europe and beyond. The development of mass, conducted tourism as a form of education for middle-class women and the working classes is less well understood. Based on primary research at the Thomas Cook archives, this paper examines how Cook attempted to harness the educational potential of travel by transforming it into a commercial product that the average consumer could afford. Tourism not only needed to be affordable, but also comfortable and safe given the relative inexperience these groups had travelling. Cook's critics lambasted the educational qualities of his tours and the ability of his tourists to truly appreciate what they were witnessing and experiencing. However, this criticism was often based on elitist attitudes about who could travel and the ability of the ‘lower sorts’ to comprehend it all. Cook's mission was to transform travel into tourism making it accessible to the middle and working classes but at the same time retaining its promise of enlightenment.

Keywords: Thomas Cook, history, tourism, education, class, subjectivation

© 2008 T.S. Newmeyer

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