Thomas Cook virtually invented modern tourism. He was born on November 22nd, 1808, in the village of Melbourne in Derbyshire. He started work aged 10, first as a market gardener, then as a cabinet maker.

He saw the possibilities the new railways offered, and conceived the idea of taking people in groups on them. He first took 500 people from Leicester to Loughborough for a temperance rally, charging them a shilling (£0.05) for the round trip. He later took 350 people from Leicester on a tour of Scotland, then 150,000 people to London for the 1851 Great Exhibition.

In 1855 he undertook his first foreign tour, taking two groups on a circular tour of Belgium, Germany and France, ending in Paris for the French Exhibition. He later introduced ‘hotel coupons’ in counterfoil books, to be traded for hotel stays and meals at places on the Thomas Cook list. These were the first travellers cheques, and became big business.

By now his Fleet Street shop was selling travel accessories such as luggage and guide books, and he’d entered partnership with this son as “Thomas Cook & Son.” His package holidays had ushered in an age of mass tourism, opening up the Continent to British visitors, and Britain to tourists from abroad.

After his death the business passed to his sons, then grandsons, and remained in the family hands until 1928. It became one of the biggest travel firms in the world, adapting itself to the emergence of mass air travel to supplement. It went under just two months ago owing to what analysts declared was poor financial management. There was still money to be made from holidays, but the firm had taken on too much debt and was no longer able to meet its obligations. When it went out of business on 23 September, it was about £1.7bn in debt to its banks with a further £1.3bn owed to suppliers.

A further factor was competition. Newer, leaner firms were undercutting its prices and taking market share from it. This is what the market does. It is part of the constant churn as new products and processes enter the market with new competitors. Ways are found to cut costs, and those firms which lag behind in doing so find themselves displaced by those which are quicker to embrace the new opportunities.

It was sad to see Thomas Cook go, especially with so many job losses. The firm had a distinguished history and was embedded into UK holiday culture. But many famous household names have gone the same way, and others undoubtedly will. A look at the top 100 FTSE companies over time shows this churn, as newer names replace the familiar ones. The churn causes localized distress, usually brief, but new opportunities and better value result from it.