Banjul
Banjul King Fahad Mosque and surroundings
Banjul seen from SPOT satellite
Banjul Banjul seen from SPOT satellite
Coordinates: 13°27′11″N 16°34′39″W / 13.45306°N 16.5775°W / 13.45306; -16.5775Coordinates: 13°27′11″N 16°34′39″W / 13.45306°N 16.5775°W / 13.45306; -16.5775
Country	The Gambia
Division	Banjul
Area
• Urban	36 sq mi (93 km2)
Population (2003)
• City	34,828
• Density	970/sq mi (374.5/km2)
• Urban	357,238

Banjul (formerly Bathurst), officially the City of Banjul, is the capital of The Gambia, and is in the division of the same name. The population of the city proper is only 34,828, with the Greater Banjul Area, which includes the City of Banjul and the Kanifing Municipal Council, at a population of 357,238 (2003 census).^[1] Banjul is on St Mary's Island (Banjul Island), where the Gambia River enters the Atlantic Ocean. The island is connected to the mainland — by passenger and vehicle ferries to the north and by bridges to the south.

Etymology[link]

Banjul takes its name from the Mandé people who gathered specific fibres on the island, which were used in the manufacture of ropes. Bang julo is the Mandinka (Mande) word for rope fibre. The mispronunciation led to the word Banjul.^{[citation needed]}

History[link]

Astronaut View of Banjul

In 1651 Banjul was leased by the Duke of Courland from the king of Kombo, as part of Courland colonization.^[2]

In 1816, the British founded Banjul as a trading post and base for suppressing the slave trade. The British renamed the Banjul Island to St. Mary and first named Bathurst after Henry Bathurst, the secretary of the British Colonial Office, but was changed to Banjul in 1973.^[3]

Arch 22 at the entrance to Banjul

On 22 July 1994 Banjul was the scene of a bloodless military coup d'état in which President Dawda Jawara was overthrown and replaced by the country's current President Yahya Jammeh. To commemorate this event, Arch 22 was built as an entrance portal to the capital. The gate is 35 metres tall and stands at the centre of an open square. It houses a textile museum.

Attractions in the city include the Gambian National Museum, the Albert Market, Banjul State House, Banjul Court House, African Heritage Museum, two cathedrals and several major mosques.^[4]

Banjul is the destination of the Plymouth-Banjul Challenge, a charity road rally.

Economy[link]

Banjul is the country's economic and administrative centre and includes the Central Bank of The Gambia. Peanut processing is the country's principal industry, but beeswax, palm wood, palm oil, and skins and hides are also shipped from the port of Banjul.^[5]

Banjul is also the home of the Gambia Technical Training Institute. GTTI is currently engaged in a partnership with non-profit organization Power Up Gambia to develop a solar energy training program.

Climate[link]

Banjul has a very warm climate year round. Under the Koppen climate classification, Banjul features a tropical wet and dry climate. The city features a lengthy dry season, spanning from November to June and a relatively short wet season covering the remaining four months. However, during those four months, Banjul tends to see heavy precipitation. August is usually the rainiest month, with on average 500 mm of precipitation falling. Temperatures are somewhat constant, though it tends to be slightly cooler during the wet season than the dry season.

Transport[link]

Banjul International Airport

Albert Market

A street in Banjul

Ferries sail from Banjul to Barra. The city is served by the Banjul International Airport. Banjul is on the Trans–West African Coastal Highway connecting it to Dakar and Bissau, and will eventually provide a paved highway link to 11 other nations of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Banjul International Airport was one of the primary Transoceanic Abort Landing (TAL) sites for the Space Shuttle. It was selected in September 1987, replacing a TAL site at Dakar, Senegal, due to runway deficiencies and geographic hazards there. Banjul was closed as a TAL site in November 2002, although it was used for the STS-125 mission to the Hubble Space Telescope in 2009.

Districts[link]

Districts of Banjul

Banjul Division (Greater Banjul Area) is divided into two districts:

• Banjul
• Kanifing

Sister cities[link]

• Ostend (Belgium)^[7]
• Grimsby (UK)
• Newark, New Jersey (United States).
• Taipei, (Taiwan) since 1997.

See also[link]

• Divisions of The Gambia
• Districts of The Gambia

	The Gambia portal
	Serer portal

References[link]

1. ^ Gambia Divisions
2. ^ [1]
3. ^ History of Banjul
4. ^ Banjul Gambia - Travel Information
5. ^ State Department Information
6. ^ "Average Conditions Banjul, Gambia". BBC Weather. http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2413876. Retrieved April 11, 2012. 
7. ^ Cooperation is established in ICT-infrastructure for the B.C.C. and other projects for capacity building. Ostend-based humanitarian organisation Medios vzw is supporting the Female Surgical Ward of the Royal Victoria Teaching Hospital. (more info on http://stedenband.oostende.be)

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Banjul

• Access Gambia - Hotels, News, Travel & Photos
• photo documentary 2007 (Lisa Van Damme)

v t e Administrative divisions of the Gambia LGAs Banjul LGA Basse Brikama Janjanbureh Kanifing Kerewan Kuntaur Mansa Konko National capital, Divisions and Districts Banjul City Banjul District Kanifing Central River Division Fulladu West Janjanbureh Lower Saloum Niamina Dankunku Niamina East Niamina West Niani Nianija Sami Upper Saloum Lower River Division Jarra Central Jarra East Jarra West Kiang Central Kiang East Kiang West North Bank Division Central Baddibu Jokadu Lower Baddibu Lower Niumi Upper Baddibu Upper Niumi Upper River Division Fulladu East Kantora Sandu Wuli West Coast Foni Bintang-Karenai Foni Bondali Foni Brefet Foni Jarrol Foni Kansala Kombo Central Kombo East Kombo North/Saint Mary Kombo South

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Thomas Cook

Thomas Cook (22 November 1808 – 18 July 1892) of Melbourne, Derbyshire, England founded the travel agency that in 2007 became Thomas Cook Group.

Early days[link]

Thomas Cook was born to John and Elizabeth Cook, who lived at 9 Quick Close in the village of Melbourne, Derbyshire.^[1] The couple's first child, he was named after Elizabeth's father, Thomas Perkins. John Cook died when Thomas was three years old, and his mother remarried later that same year.

At the age of 10, Cook started working as an assistant to a local market gardener for a wage of six pence a week. At the age of 14, he secured an apprenticeship with John Pegg, and spent five years as a cabinet maker.^[1]

He was brought up as a strict Baptist, and joined his local Temperance Society. In February 1826, Cook became a preacher, and toured the region as a village evangelist, distributing pamphlets, and occasionally working as a cabinet maker to earn money.^[1] After working as a part-time publisher of Baptist and Temperance pamphlets, he became a Baptist minister in 1828.

In 1832, Cook moved to Adam and Eve Street in Market Harborough. Influenced by the local Baptist minister Francis Beardsall, he took the temperance pledge on New Year's Day in 1833. As a part of the temperance movement, he organized meetings and held anti-liquor processions.^[1]

On 3 March 1833, Cook married Marianne Mason. John Mason Cook, their only son, was born on 13 January 1834 .^[1]

The first-ever excursions[link]

Panels from the Thomas Cook Building in Leicester, displaying excursions offered by Thomas Cook

Cook's idea to offer excursions came to him while waiting for the stagecoach on the London Road at Kibworth. With the opening of the extended Midland Counties Railway, he arranged to take a group of 540 temperance campaigners from Leicester Campbell Street station to a rally in Loughborough, eleven miles away. On 5 July 1841, Thomas Cook arranged for the rail company to charge one shilling per person that included rail tickets and food for this train journey. Cook was paid a share of the fares actually charged to the passengers, as the railway tickets, being legal contracts between company and passenger, could not have been issued at his own price. This was the first privately chartered excursion train to be advertised to the general public; Cook himself acknowledging that there had been previous, unadvertised, private excursion trains.^[2] During the following three summers he planned and conducted outings for temperance societies and Sunday-school children. In 1844 the Midland Counties Railway Company agreed to make a permanent arrangement with him provided he found the passengers. This success led him to start his own business running rail excursions for pleasure, taking a percentage of the railway tickets.

Leicester railway station - this was built between 1892 and 1894 to replace, largely on the same site, Campbell Street station, the origin for many of Cook's early tours.

On 4 August 1845 he arranged accommodation for a party to travel from Leicester to Liverpool. In 1846, he took 350 people from Leicester on a tour of Scotland, however his lack of commercial ability led him to bankruptcy. He persisted and found success when he claimed that he arranged for over 165,000 people to attend the Great Exhibition in London. Four years later, he planned his first excursion abroad, when he took a group from Leicester to Calais to coincide with the Paris Exhibition. The following year he started his 'grand circular tours' of Europe. During the 1860s he took parties to Switzerland, Italy, Egypt and United States. Cook established 'inclusive independent travel', whereby the traveller went independently but his agency charged for travel, food and accommodation for a fixed period over any chosen route. Such was his success that the Scottish railway companies withdrew their support between 1862 and 1863 to try the excursion business for themselves.

With John A Mason Cook, he formed a partnership and renamed the travel agency as Thomas Cook and Son. They acquired business premises on Fleet Street, London. By this time, Cook had stopped personal tours and became an agent for foreign or domestic travel. The office also contained a shop which sold essential travel accessories including guide books, luggage, telescopes and footwear. Thomas saw his venture as both religious and social service; his son provided the commercial expertise that allowed the company to expand. In accordance with his beliefs, he and his wife also ran a small temperance hotel above the office. Their business model was refined by the introduction of the 'hotel coupon' in 1866. Detachable coupons in a counterfoil book were issued to the traveller. These were valid for either a restaurant meal or an overnight hotel stay provided they were on Cook's list.

In 1865, the agency organised tours of the United States, picking up passengers from several departure points. John Mason Cook led the excursion which included tours of several Civil War battlefields. A brief but bitter partnership was formed with an American businessman in 1871 called Cook, Son and Jenkins; however after an acrimonious split the agency reverted back to its original name. A round the world tour started in 1872, which for 200 guineas, included a steamship across the Atlantic, a stage coach across America, a paddle steamer to Japan, and an overland journey across China and India, lasting 222 days.

In 1874, Thomas Cook introduced 'circular notes', a product that later became better known by American Express's brand, 'traveller's cheques'.^[3]

Conflicts of interest between father and son were resolved when the son persuaded his father, Thomas Cook, to retire in 1879. He moved back to Leicestershire and lived quietly until his death. The firm's growth was consolidated by John Mason Cook and his two sons, especially by its involvement with military transport and postal services for Britain and Egypt during the 1880s when Cook began organising tours to the Middle East. By 1888, the company had established offices around the world, including three in Australia and one in Auckland, New Zealand, and in 1890, the company sold over 3.25 million tickets.^[4] John Mason Cook promoted, and even led, excursions to, for example, the Middle East where he was described as "the second-greatest man in Egypt".^[4] However, while arranging for the German Emperor Wilhelm II to visit Palestine in 1898, he contracted dysentery and died the following year.

Statue of Thomas Cook near Leicester railway station.

Non-family ownership[link]

John Mason Cook's sons, Frank Henry, Thomas Albert and Ernest Edward, were not nearly as successful as their father and grandfather at running the business. Despite opening a new headquarters in Berkeley Square, London in 1926, ownership of Thomas Cook and Son only remained with the family until 1928, when it was sold to the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. During the 1930s the travel agency changed its focus from tours to Egypt and Palestine. Indeed the company was a principal employer in Egypt, involved in shipping, transport and touring operations. After the outbreak of World War II the Paris headquarters of the Wagons-Lits company was seized by the occupying forces, and the British assets requisitioned by the British government. In 1941, the centenary of the company, Thomas Cook & Son Ltd. was sold to the four major railway companies with the aim of expanding it further.

The company was nationalised in 1948 as part of the British Transport Commission. In the early 1950s the company began promoting 'foreign holidays' (particularly Italy, Spain and Switzerland) by showing information films at town halls throughout Britain. However they did not sell cheap package holidays, which included transport and accommodation, a decision costly to the company. The company went further into decline, and was rescued by a consortium of Trust House Forte, Midland Bank and the Automobile Association that bought the company from the British Government on 26 May 1972.^[5] Midland Bank acquired sole control in 1977. U.S. banking laws prohibited any national banks from owning travel agencies, so the U.S. operations were sold to Dun & Bradstreet in 1975.

After restructuring the company and re-entering the traveller's cheque business the company prospered again. During the 1980s Thomas Cook had its most visible business presence in the U.S., including robust travellers cheque sales to regional U.S. banks. The company had enough business critical mass to set up a computer centre near Princeton, New Jersey. Robert Gaffney and Samuel Malek were two of the notable decision-makers in that era. Robert Maxwell bought substantial holdings in the company in 1988. He was expected to sell his holdings quickly as he was a publisher rather than a travel agent. However, when Crimson/Heritage purchased the U.S. division of Thomas Cook for US$1.3 billion in 1989,^[6] he still maintained a substantial interest in the company until his death.

In June 1992, following the acquisition of Midland Bank by HSBC, Thomas Cook was sold to the German bank Westdeutsche Landesbank (WestLB) and the charter airline LTU Group for £200 million.

In September 1994 American Express (Amex) bought the corporate travel interests of Thomas Cook Travel Inc. which represented about ten percent of the British company's total revenue. However Amex was not able to buy the venerable Thomas Cook name; an American Express affiliate, Cook Travel Inc. had been operating under that name since 1991 in the United States.

Due to contractual difficulties LTU Group sold its 10% shares to WestLB in May 1995. During 1996 the company bought short-haul operator Sunworld and European city-breaks tour group Time Off. Within three years the company had combined Sunworld, Sunset, Inspirations, Flying Colours and Caledonian Airways into the JMC (for John Mason Cook) brand.

Thomas Cook logo, 1999

A modern Thomas Cook travel agency in Leeds.

On 2 February 1999 the Carlson Leisure Group merged with Thomas Cook into a holding company owned by West LB, Carlson Inc and Preussag Aktiengesellschaft ("Preussag").^[7] However, in mid-2000 Preussag acquired Thomas Cook's rival Thomson Travel and was forced to sell its majority 50.1% stake in Thomas Cook by regulatory authorities.

In March 2001 the Financial Services division was sold to Travelex, who retained the right to use the Thomas Cook brand on Traveller's Cheques for 5 years. In 2002 Thomas Cook was acquired by the German company C&N Touristic AG, which later changed its name to Thomas Cook AG. The group is jointly owned by Lufthansa and Karstadt.

In 2007 Thomas Cook announced a merger with competitor MyTravel, with the new group to be called Thomas Cook Group plc and listed on the London Stock Exchange. The transaction was completed in June 2007 following competition authority clearance. The new group was 51% owned by Arcandor (new name of Karstadt).

Thomas Cook made a controversial business move in 2008, buying out Canadian travel wholesaler IFS Voyages (including Fun Sun Vacations, Intair, Exotik Tours, Boomerang Tours, etc.).

In March 2011 Thomas Cook acquired the UK travel insurance and airport parking provider Essential Travel and launched Thomas Cook Essentials. This was followed by a merger with The Co-operative Travel group on 8 October 2011 to create the UK's largest retail travel network.

At the 2011 AGM Thomas Cook shareholders mounted a "revolt" over executive bonuses, with only 53.2 percent voting in favour of the remuneration report.^[8]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Thomas Cook

• Thomas Cook Biography
• Article about Thomas Cook