The first organised tours date back to Thomas Cook who, on 5 July 1841, chartered a train to take a group of temperance campaigners from Leicester to a rally in Loughborough, 18 kilometres (11 mi) away.
With the gradual decline of visits to British seaside resorts after the Second World War, Thomas Cook & Son began promoting foreign holidays (particularly Italy, Spain and Switzerland) in the early 1950s.
However they made a costly decision by not going into the new form of cheap holidays which combined the transport and accommodation arrangements into a single 'package'.
In addition, the amendments made in Montreal to the Convention on International Civil Aviation on 14 June 1954 was very liberal to Spain, allowing impetus for mass tourism using charter planes.
[citation needed] By the late 1950s and 1960s, these cheap package holidays — which combined flight, transfers, and accommodation — provided the first chance for most people in the United Kingdom to have affordable travel abroad.
[citation needed] In 2005 a growing number of consumers were avoiding package holidays and were instead travelling with budget airlines and booking their own accommodation.