While in Pamplona the current debate is about whether the runners should all wear white gear and perhaps pay a small sum of money to be allowed to take part in the running of the bulls, the international debate about the bullrunning is quite a different issue. Thanks to what we have learned from an article written by Steve Hawkes for the British newspaper, The Telegraph, it seems that the International Thomas Cook Travel Agency has cancelled all its promotion of the Pamplona Running of the Bulls and the Sanfermin fiesta in general, due to pressure from the anti-bullfighting group, PETA. The British branch of this organization in defense of animal rights has confirmed this item of news. However, for the moment, the Thomas Cook Travel Agency is refusing to confirm directly to us the truth of the news item published in the newspaper. Other British newspapers are taking the news as true and publishing similar reports about the Thomas Cook agency and the confirmation made by PETA. In addition, Peta also assures the public that the same step will soon be taken by First Festival Travel Agency, as from January 2014. These actions can now be added to those steps previously taken in similar campaign actions two years ago which caused the withdrawal of a campaign for Pepsi in New Zealand as well as the cancellation of various publicity campaings in the USA which offered prizes of a trip to Pamplona fiestas for the winners.
The Thomas Cook Travel Agency was conceded an award in 2002 for its family tourism vacations and it is also one of the largest travel agents working online. For the moment, they have not modified their web information about Pamplona and it reads the same as it has done for the last year or so. Even here, the running of the bulls is not given any overt treatment in the images shown on the web page. What they have done is to eliminate any reference to the running of the bulls or to San Fermin within their own internal searcher.
