While post-war Britain was still coping with the dreary reality of ration books the enterprising Harry Chandler, founder of the Travel Club of Upminster, greeted holidaymakers arriving at Basel station in Switzerland with a breakfast of fried eggs and bacon. The rich food made most of them sick, but as a marketing ploy it worked.

Flight to the Sun is the story of the entrepreneurs who made foreign travel affordable. The changing fortunes of Vladimir Raitz, pioneer of the first charter flight to Corsica in 1950 and founder of Horizon Holidays, are interwoven with a chronological account of the development of mass tourism. The book is loaded with facts, figures, names and anecdotes - a definitive history of the package holiday. A useful read for anyone interested in the mechanics of tourism and its social impact.