Thomas Cook pulls number of attractions from its package holidays
THOMAS Cook has made a major change to their holiday packages which include attractions.
The tour operator, which relaunched back in 2020, has announced it will be removing many of its attractions on sale.
Any that have captive dolphins, orcas or whales will no longer be sold by Thomas Cook as part of their new animal welfare policy.
Back in 2018, any attractions with captive orcas were removed from sale, but the new move includes dolphins and whales.
Instead, experiences that include seeing them in the wild such as whale and dolphin watching will be promoted.
It follows Expedia, who banned all travel holidays which included captive dolphins and whales back in 2021.
And in 2019, British Airways and Virgin Holidays stopped selling tickets to SeaWorld.
Alan French, chief executive of Thomas Cook said: “We know that for our customers going to a zoo or an aqua park is an important part of their holiday and we only want to offer those experiences when we’re confident they abide by the highest welfare standards and are not built on animal suffering.
“We have taken the decision to offer only wild-watching experiences for whales and dolphins to help our customers experience these intelligent and sociable animals in their natural habitat.”
He added: “We have been seeing a strong return to bookings following the pandemic, but also a decline in the demand for activities that harm the environment or animals.
“Our customers care about these issues, and we are proud to be matching those sentiments. It has been an easy decision to make.”
There are other ways to see animals in the wild including a UK staycation which is a “better safari than Africa”.
Thomas Cook went bust back in 2019, but relaunched a year later with Chinese shareholder Fosun, who retained a large number of shares in Thomas Cook, behind the return of the former travel company.
They have since launched bargain deals for as little as £199pp which are ATOL-protected.
And Fosun claimed that bookings are up 340 per cent, which works out to 80,000 holidays sold.