Company history

In 1904 Bangkok was mentioned for the first time in a travel programme of Thomas Cook & Sons. Because of the good business prospects in South-East Asia, an office was opened in Singapore. Brochures were printed for visitors and foreign inhabitants of the city, in which travel to Indonesia, French Indo-China, and Siam were offered. At the Thomas Cook office you could purchase tickets for both the voyage by ship and the railway journey, and where there was no railway they arranged comfortable transport by road. Thomas Cook's Hotel Vouchers were accepted in the best hotels in Asia, such as Raffles Hotel in Singapore, the Hotel des Indes in Batavia or the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok.

The history of the Thomas Cook office in Bangkok started in 1989 when the German tour operator Neckermann decided to open its own Incoming Agency there, Thai Asia Travel, not only to strengthen its position but also to expand and improve the quality of the service to customers and to ensure that it was the best possible. For many years Neckermann had been the market leader and the pioneer in the Far East for the German speaking tourists and by 1978 was bringing 21,000 visitors to Thailand and the surrounding countries, as far as Japan. Because of the untiring efforts of their local Incoming Agent in Thailand, Neckermann was also a trend-setter in the range, variety and quality of tours in Thailand, being the first travel agency in the German market to offer Pattaya and later Phuket, Krabi and Khao Lak.

In 1997 the parent companies of the charter airline Condor (Lufthansa) and Neckermann (KarstadtQuelle) decided to bring together all the travel operations into one joint enterprise. They founded the new company under the name C&N, which was the basis for an integrated travel conglomerate, covering marketing and sales, travel administration, flights, hotels, and the incoming agents in all major destinations, for the complete range of business. In the year 2000 this new company took over the retail and leisure business travel part of the French travel company Havas Voyages, and a year later the British tour operator Thomas Cook. This created one of the world's leading travel corporations, changing the name from C&N to Thomas Cook AG. As a consequence the brand name Thomas Cook has been used as a successful international marketing and sales strategy and has been championed in all markets and service areas. The change of name of the Incoming Agency in Thailand in 2002 from Thai Asia Travel to Thomas Cook (Thailand) was a consequence of the company's marketing strategy.

However, in 2005 as a result of the changes and developments in the market characteristics of the leisure travel industry, the Thomas Cook Group started a process of realigning its operations around the world. It was decided that the formerly integrated leisure travel group would focus on its core business as a tour operator and distributor of leisure travel products and services. In order to reduce its capital commitments and to obtain funds for necessary investments, Thomas Cook has divested itself of participating interests in its non core products and operations worldwide. As a result of a Management Buy-Out, Thomas Maurer, a Swiss living and working in Thailand for nearly two decades, bought the shares of the former parent company. Although a long-term mutual commitment has been agreed it has also been agreed that the incoming agency will change its name to present a clear structure to the public. Therefore as of June 1st, 2007, the company name changed to Travel Center Asia Ltd.