The World’s First Package Tours
When was the last time you had a holiday? And did you organize the trip or did you take a package tour? These days, most people choose a package tour, especially when they go abroad on holiday. They pay for their travel and accommodation in their own country, and they take traveler’s cheques which they exchange for local money when they arrive in the foreign country. But in the past it was very different. In fact, before the middle of the 19lh century, travelling for pleasure was rare and very expensive, and only a few rich people travelled abroad. The man who changed all this and brought in the age of mass tourism was Thomas Cook.
Thomas Cook was a printer in Leicester, England and the secretary of a local church organization. In 1841 it was his job to arrange rail travel for members of his church to a meeting in Loughborough, a round trip of twenty-two miles. This was the first world's package trip. After this first success, he organized many more for his church. Then in 1845 he advertised a package tour to Liverpool for the general public, and before it took place went to Liverpool to meet the hotel staff, and check the accommodation and restaurant.
He then started to organize trips all over Britain, including the Great Exhibition in London. In 1851 he published the world's first travel magazine which had details of trips, advice to travelers and articles and reports about the places to visit.
In 1854 he gave up his job as a printer. In 1855 he took his first group of tourists to Paris and later that year led tour of Belgium, Germany and France. In 1863 he went to Switzerland and in 1864 to Italy. By then he had a million clients. The following year he opened an office in London, which his son John Mason managed. They introduced a circular ticket which gave the traveler a single ticket to cover one journey instead of a number of tickets from all the railway companies involved, and they organized a system of coupons which people bought at home and exchanged in the foreign country for a hotel room and meals.
In 1866 the first group of European tourists visited New York and the Civil War battlefields of Virginia. In 1868 the Cooks went to the Holy Land with tents because there were no hotels there at that time. After the Suez Canal opened in 1869, Cook created his own fleet of luxury boats to travel up the river Nile.
It was dangerous to carry large amounts of cash, so in 1874 Cook introduced an early form of traveler’s cheque, which travelers could cash at a number of hotels and banks around the world.
Thomas Cook died in 1892 at the age of 84, and his son John Mason seven years later. But the age of the package tour and mass tourism was born.

ЗАДАНИЕ № 41 (- выберите один вариант ответа)
Thomas Cook lived in …
ВАРИАНТЫ ОТВЕТОВ:
A London B ​Loughborough C Leicester

ЗАДАНИЕ № 42 (- выберите один вариант ответа)
The first world's package trip was organized in …
ВАРИАНТЫ ОТВЕТОВ:
A 1845 B ​1841 C 1851

ЗАДАНИЕ № 43 (- выберите один вариант ответа)
The first package tour for the general public was organized by Thomas Cook in …
ВАРИАНТЫ ОТВЕТОВ:
A 1845 B​1841 C ​1851

ЗАДАНИЕ № 44 (- выберите один вариант ответа)
The world's first travel magazine was published in …
ВАРИАНТЫ ОТВЕТОВ:
A 1845 B 1841 C ​1851

ЗАДАНИЕ № 45 (- выберите один вариант ответа)
Tomas Cook organized the first package tour abroad in …
ВАРИАНТЫ ОТВЕТОВ:
A 1854 B ​1863 C​1855

ЗАДАНИЕ № 46 (- выберите один вариант ответа)
Tomas Cook organized tours only for members of his church
ВАРИАНТЫ ОТВЕТОВ:
A true B false C​not said

ЗАДАНИЕ № 47 (- выберите один вариант ответа)
Tomas Cook opened his office in London in…
ВАРИАНТЫ ОТВЕТОВ:
A​1855 B 1864 C 1865

ЗАДАНИЕ № 48 (- выберите один вариант ответа)
a circular ticket is …
ВАРИАНТЫ ОТВЕТОВ:
A​a single ticket B​ a return ticket C​One-way ticket

ЗАДАНИЕ № 49 (- выберите один вариант ответа)
Cook issued the first traveler’s cheques in …
ВАРИАНТЫ ОТВЕТОВ:
A 1874 B 1892 C 1869

Vocabulary
ЗАДАНИЕ № 50 (- выберите один вариант ответа)
​…develops tour packages.
ВАРИАНТЫ ОТВЕТОВ:​
A​tourism manager B​tour guide C​tour operator

ЗАДАНИЕ № 51 (- выберите один вариант ответа)
Free-lancers …
ВАРИАНТЫ ОТВЕТОВ:​
A work full time for a tourist company B work in high season
C​ work in off-season

ЗАДАНИЕ № 52 (- выберите один вариант ответа)
​…entertains the guests
ВАРИАНТЫ ОТВЕТОВ:​
​A​travel agent B tour guide C​animator

ЗАДАНИЕ № 53 (- выберите один вариант ответа)
.… give free-lancers a permission to work.
ВАРИАНТЫ ОТВЕТОВ:​
A​receipts B visas C ​licenses

ЗАДАНИЕ № 54 (- выберите один вариант ответа)
​…shows tourists round a city.
ВАРИАНТЫ ОТВЕТОВ:​
A travel agent B tour guide C animator