Thomas Cook will establish a charitable foundation this summer to give something back to communities in the UK and destination countries.

Chief executive Manny Fontenla-Novoa revealed the plan to TTG after he opened a children's ward in a London hospital that was built with £2.3 million raised by Thomas Cook customers and staff.

The Thomas Cook Children's Critical Care Centre at King's College Hospital houses intensive care and high-dependency units. It aims to treat 40,000 children a year. The centre's opening was the culmination of two years of fundraising by the company.

It is decorated with a travel theme featuring beach and underwater scenes, and Fontenla-Novoa said: "A normal ward can feel drab and depressing but this ward gives you a lift that makes you want to live."He added that the efforts of staff and customers to build the ward had helped convince the company that the next step was to set up its own charitable foundation, which it wants to launch by August.

The foundation will raise money at home and abroad. A board comprising senior executives, staff, including agents, and customers will decide how the money is spent. It could range from responding to a disaster such as the China earthquake to supporting a child through school.

Fontenla-Novoa said the Thomas Cook name could one day be seen in hospital wards all over the world.

"Sometimes you ask staff and customers to donate money and they can't really see where it goes, but this would show them,"he said.

"When people think about travel they maybe think about television programmes about horrible holidays or the environment issue, but this will help give a different view."

"We do a lot of things that we do not shout about. We have great people in the travel industry who really care and the general public should know about it." Thomas Cook's foundation will line up alongside initiatives such as the World Care Fund, set up by First Choice to raise money for The Travel Foundation. It is now being extended to the Thomson brand for summer 2009 bookings.

The Travel Foundation, which promotes sustainable tourism and supports local people in destinations, is funded by a range of companies including Virgin Holidays, Tui Travel and Thomas Cook.

British Airways runs a Change for Good programme with Unicef, which has raised £24 million since 1994, as well as offering free flights and donating blankets to more than 130 community organisations.

Justin Francis, founder of responsibletravel.com, said Thomas Cook's move to create its own foundation was significant because it showed the biggest mainstream operators were extending their corporate social responsibility obligations to destination countries as well as the UK.

"We see a lot of smaller operators working with local people and it can really make a difference," he said.

Rachel Nobel, campaigns officer for the charity Tourism Concern, said the move would help. But she also called on companies to ensure local people were consulted about developments and benefited directly from employment as well as indirectly through fundraising.