Of Human Bondage

While reading W. Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage, I came across this sentence: "He is the independent traveller, who uses Cook's tickets because they save trouble, but looks with good-humoured contempt on the personally
conducted parties."
I googled 'Cook's tickets' and was flooded with hits selling tickets to people wanting to see Dane Cook or David Cook perform. So, would someone tell me what exactly are Cook's tickets and why a British gentleman of the late 1800's would disdain them?

That would be a reference to Thomas Cook. Here is an article that might help. http://www.le.ac.uk/lahs/downloads/CookSmPagesfromvolumeXLIX-3.pdf

I want to say "package tours", but then I don't know if the traveler looks with good-humored contempt at others, or at himself.

Sometimes that "lost generation" prose can be a bit out-dated. I still can't figure out why they describe drunkeness as getting "tight".