COOKS TOURS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9149, 3 September 1888, Page 6

COOKS TOURS.

INTERVIEW WITH MR. F. H. COOK, A representative of this paper waited on Mr. F. H. Cook at Mr. Bilbrough's office on his arrival in Auckland by the Gairloch on Saturday, and requested the favour of an interview, which was courteously acceded to. " I understand, Mr. Cook (said the reporter), that your firm intend extending their tourist system to New Zealand this season ; may I ask what arrangements have already been effected ?" " We have concluded (replied Mr. Cook) satisfactory arrangements with the Victorian Railway Commissioners, and with the South Australian, and expect to do the same with those of New South Wales as soon as the new Commissioner of Railways arrives ; and as regards New Zealand, I have already interviewed the Hon. Mr. Mitchelson in Wellington, and expect to have a mutually satisfactory agreement signed when 1 return there a fortnight hence, as well as arranging for an extension of our business with the Union S.S. Co. We have made oar agency at Melbourne into a branch office, and shall have another in Sydney, while we intend establishing a branch office in New Zealand, with agencies in the chief towns; and already several hotels, coach lines, and other services—in addition to those already connected with the system—have expressed their willingness to join." " Do you expect that there will bo an increased tourist travel to Now Zealand shortly ? " " Yes. The wonderful scenic beauties of New Zealand are slowly but surely becoming known, and when we have our system in operation so that people can tell before leaving home—be that home in England, Europe, India, America, or elsewhere — what their trip will cost them, and in fact have all the trouble of finding out routes, and the means of getting from one place to another, taken off their hands and only the pleasure left to them, we expect a large annual stream of tourists to this colony." "Although your firm's fame is universal, Mr. Cook, a few details with regard to the history of your business and its present scope would be interesting to our readers ; will you furnish me with a few ?" "Certainly. You know 'our business is other people's pleasure,' and by preventing people from making their pleasure a business, we have achieved most of our success. You will find a good many facts in these pamphlets and circulars [here Mr. Cook produced a packet from a handbag] in connection with the origin of our business and its growth. In 1841 Mr. Thomas Cook, the founder of our firm, publicly advertised the first 'special train that ever ran in England.' We then conveyed 500 people at a fare of Is each from Leicester to Loughboro', eleven miles on the Midland Counties Railway. This was followed by several others, and on August 4, 1845, a special train ran from Leicester to .Liverpool, the first excursion running over more than one company's! lines. These and many other excursions are still very popular, having now frequently to be run in triplicate. In connection with our first Liverpool excursion we chartered a vessel, and took 350 passengers via Menai Straits to Carnarvon. After this, receiving great encouragement from the Midland Railway Company, the originator of our system decided to open out ' new worlds,' advertised excursions to Scarboro', Ireland, and Scotland ; arrangements were made with hotel, coach, and steamboat proprietors, so that as soon as any route was opened ' Cook's tickets' were at once available, and later Mr. Thos. Cook turned his attention to the Continent of Europe, and founded the wonderful system now in operation. In 1850 the Chairman of the Midland Railway invited him to take charge of the company's excursions to the Great Exhibition in 1851, which he accepted, the result being that over 150,000 passengers visited London by the Midland system by excursions arranged and advertised by Thomas Cook." "I presume that the success of your system was thenceforward assured." " Yas. From that time to 1861 the excursion system was thoroughly developed from John o' Groats to Land's End. In 1845 the first announcement appeared of a ' Trip to France' from Leicester to Calais and back for 31s. In 1856 the first 1 Grand Circular Tour to the Continent' was organised via Harwich and Antwerp to Brussels, Cologne, the Rhine, Heidelberg, Strasburg, ana Paris, returning to London via Havre and Southampton, and in 1861 the first large excursion party visited Paris —some 1500—under tho management of the founder of the firm ; and thus, ' Cook's Cheap Excursions to Paris' were inaugurated, which culminated in 1878 by conveying over 70,000 passengers, and enabling us to boast of our payment to the Minister of Finance of an amount equal to one thirtieth of the total receipts of the Exhibition. The year 1863 saw the commencement of anew era in Continental travelling, viz., the introduction of tourist tickets to Switzerland and Italy. Early in 1865 the first tourist and excursion office was opened at 98, Fleet-street, under the management of Mr. John M. Cookthe present sole managing partner. The receipts for that year exceeded our most sanguine expectations, but since that date we nave taken at all our offices in one day more money than we took during the year 1865 Having already been appointed ' general passenger agent for the Continent,' and having put the system in force over Holland and Belgium, in 1870 Germany was induced to join, and Mr. J. M. Cook was appointed general passenger agent for the international traffic via the Brenner to Italy and the East, and in 1873, the extension of the system to the Vienna Exhibition had such amazing results that all the chief railway administrations in Austria, Bavaria, Germany, Belgium, and Holland recognised and accepted 'Cook's Tours.'" " What about America?" "The first journey of exploration was made there in 1865, and the first special party went over there the following year, and in 1867 we laid the foundation of the large system of tours now in operation through all the chief parts of America." " How many offices have you now connected with your business ?" " We have 58 branch offices, and of these 10, in addition to the head office, are in London, 15 in other towns in the British isles, 14 on the Continent, 10 in the East, and now there will be three in Australasia, independent of 36 in North America, and a large number of agencies in different quarters of the globe, of course including these colonies." " When was your system extended to the ' Round the World Tours.' " "In 1871 the first personally conducted tour was advertised 'Round the World,' but there being no inquiries for Australia and New Zealand, though a number for China and Japan, we struck out the two former, and the tour was succossfully carried out in 1872. Since then, however, we have been repeatedly urged to extend our system to Australasia ; this was partially done during the Melbourne Exhibition in 1879, and will be completed now. In 1875 our system was put in operation to Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, with extension to St. Petersburg!!, and the Queen of Denmark has had tickets from our office." " If not troubling you too much, Mr. Cook, will you mention a few of the speciallly noteworthy excursions or other things that have taken place in your business ?" "Certainly. In 1879-80 we conveyed nearly 500 travellers to various parts of the Holy Land, including five distinct parties through the Sinaitic Desert, and in 1884 we took a thousand French pilgrims on horseback through the Holy Land, with all the camping equipage and stores. " In 1880 we paid the Italian railway companies for travel over their lines alone £35,000. In 1881 India was included in our tourist system, and we have our own offices at Bombay and Calcutta. We publish five district " Excursionists " to make our facilities know -i to the public, and of the French " Excursion alone we guaranteed to circ>hte -i.'-no copie3 the first year. As \ urti°ing, &c., we issue considerably over b,iX**,OoO (eight millions) ot posters, bilL, and pr->framrnes annually, bemifes £10,000 of advertisements 'iv the isa Uig papers throughout the wo-'d." " Hr * many peopla have availed themselves of /our system?" " For the 48 years our firm has been in existence our numbers are in excess of those quoted to you already as representing our annual issue of bills, in other words, 8,100,000, and anv ng them we have some ■ of 'ie mosti.'rstuigu'ohed persons, including I Royaliy, in the world, We arranged a

special trip to Palestine for Prince Albert victor and Prince George of Wales, for which H.R.H. the Prince of Wales specially wrote to thank us ; and emperors, kings, queens, princes, rajahs, grand dukes, have freely availed themselves of the facilities our system affords. In '86 the Indian Government asked us to undertake the control of the Mahommedan pilgrims of India to the Hejaz, and to reduce as far as possible their sufferings on the journey. For this purpose alone we have chartered four steamers, and on the first boat this year convey over 1000, while we fully expect that 3000 more will follow." " Wero you nob connected with the war in the Soudan as regards transport up the Nile?" " Yes ; we did the whole of the transport business for the War Office, and our connection with the expedition was unique, the War Office having placed on record that they had no trace of any military movement of any magnitude having been previously entrusted to a private firm." " Can you explain the nature of the undertaking?" " Well, you see, we have the whole control of the steamboat and passenger traffic on the Nile, so that the Government had to buy us out or give us the work. You will see by this extract) from an extempore address delivered before the Royal Geographical Society by Mr. J. M. Cook, what the extent of the business was— " The instructions I received were to provide for about 6000 men, with six to eight thousand tons of stores, which we bad to convey from Assiout, the termination of the Upper Egyptian Railway, to Wady Haifa, the foot of the Second Cataract. I was also to convey the 400 special row-boats by railway from Alexandria to Assiout, and thence by steamers to Wady Haifa. The Admiralty calculated that I should require about 12,000 tons of coal to work the expedition. I received my written orders as late as the 2nd September, and I was bold enough to contract that the last of the 400 whalers should be at the terminal point by the end of the first week in November. I had, however, ordered about 20,000 tons of coal to be in readiness. Instead of the numbers of men I have mentioned, we have conveyed about 11,000 English and 7000 Egyptian troops, and nearly 40,000 tons of stores, and have consumed nearly '2-1,000 tons of coal, and have conveyed a total of about 40.000 tons of coal up the river, so that we still have about 16,000 tons ready for any contingency. During the same period we had also to convey about 30,000 tons of cereals from different points of the river to Assiout on account of the Egyptian Government. Ido not know whether anyone hero can realise what is meant by carrying out such a work. At present I have only approximate figures, but X think I may say that to convey the 000 tons of coal we bad 28 large steamers running between the Tyne and Alexandria ; we had something like 6,000 railway trucks in use between Alexandria and Boulac or Assiout, and for the military stores over 7,000 railway trucks in addition. Instead of 400 row-boats we had 800 to convey, and that meant the use of 400 railway trucks of the special dimensions of .34 feet in length. Then for the river work we had '27 steamers employed almost day and night, and no fewer than 6.10 sailing boats, varying from 70 to '200 tons capacity. To work these we hail a little army of our own of about 5000 men and boys, consisting of the fellaheen of Lower Egypt, and I want to take this opportunity of confirming what I said at the War Office before this expedition startedthat I know of no men who could and would work to the same extent and as willingly as the native fellaheen are constantly working from sunrise to sunset." "Just one more question, Mr. Cook, with regard to your coupons and circular tickets ; how does this part of your system work?" " We have at the present time In operation at all our offices not less than 10,000 series of travelling coupons, card or paper tickets, many of them printed by ourselves in various languages. We require a traveller to give us an outline of the route he wishes to take. We can then quote him a rate, and so combine our series of coupon tickets as to give him any combination or number of combinations he may require. There are a thousand hotels alone at which our hotel tickets are available, and nearly every important steamship company and railway organisation throughout the world are included in our system ?" " Do you propose to bring people over in parties or singly?" " Singly. Although originally the ' personally conducted party' system formed the greater part of our business, it has now served its object in teaching people to travel, and has sunk into minor significance, and it is in issuing tickets to individual travellers unrestricted as to time and available by any route and train or other means of conveyance, that our chief business lies at present." " Do you mean to do any excursion business of an intercolonial or local nature in the colonies ?" We wish to do all the business of that nature we can. One clause in our agreement with the Victorian railways specially provides for this, and we hope to arrange with the New Zealand railways and the Union Co. on a similar basis." After thanking Mr. Cook for the information he had furnished, and verifying the figures he had taken down, with a remark about the benefit that should accrue to the colony by the introduction of the system in New Zealand, our representative withdrew.