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20-year anniversary Tours & Vacation Packages Home Page
The ONLY WorldWide Directory of Tours & Vacations
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Tours.com Inc.Telephone: 415-786-9108
San Francisco, California USAOffice Hours: 9AM-6:PM
Monday - Friday

Contact us:
Administration: [email protected]
Advertising: [email protected]
Travel-Intel Newsletter: [email protected]
Maria Polk, President: [email protected]
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 About Us
   
About Us
Tours.com connects travelers to the actual companies and travel agents specializing in specific destination(s) and/or activities affording personal contact with the most qualified, experienced, knowledgeable & skillful professionals. Tour operators and agents that specialize in specific destinations are the best ones to provide the best experience, and the latest information and packages suitable to any budget for individual or group travel. With complete information a traveler can make the best decision to maximize time and dollar investment.

Travel is the ultimate adventure, trust your adventure to the experts.

Mission - Since 1995, our mission continues to stay on course, that is, to promote tourism products and services to the travel professionals, traveling public.

Vision - Since tourism is the primary income ‎source for most countries worldwide, our vision is to expand the awareness of travel products and services utilizing existing and new technology for all countries globally. (Excluding, Syria and North Korea due to US Government Regulations - OFAC)

 Team
   
Maria Polk, President & CEO
Born in Hormansdorf, Germany.
President and CEO of tours.com since 1995. Previous experience includes establishing the only available (licensed through the Public Utilities Commission - PUC) door-to-door airport shuttle service in San Francisco, which became the prototype for the numerous companies providing such services today. Joined American Express Travel in 1977 As Director, West Coast DSM. Established CENTRES - a Central Hotel Reservation and Marketing Service for independent hotels, which was acquired by a major subsidiary of the Greyhound Corporation. Served as Executive Director/General Manager for ASI – American Sightseeing Int’l- a 52-year-old worldwide association of vacation tour & sightseeing companies. In 1995, along with Joe King, founded Tours.com – The Only WorldWide Directory of Tours & Vacations.

[email protected]
Deborah Reinow, Director Global Business Development
Former Vice President of Tourism for the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau is well known in the US tourism industry having led the tourism promotion efforts for the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau for over 23 years. Responsible for marketing and sales, for all domestic and international promotion with the travel trade and airlines. Understanding the inter-connectivity of destinations, airlines and airports to develop a strategic alliances and major annual partnership.
Kevan Ridgway, VP Strategic Alliances & Planning
The past President & CEO of The Vancouver, Coast & Mountains Tourism Region for over 20 and a lifetime commitment to the hospitality and tourism industries. This experience has enabled me to develop leadership skills in the areas of business and product development, project management, market research and analysis. My formal education and subsequent CEO responsibilities provide the foundation of financial management and planning. I have earned a reputation as a creator of strategic alliances with organization leaders to effectively align and support key business objectives, particularly marketing.
Lark Gould, Content Director for Travel-Intel, Tours.com & Sightseeing.com
Award-winning author, writer & journalist, Lark Ellen Gould has been in the travel business for 25 years. She started out covering war, famine & politics in Africa & the Middle East for such publications as the Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor & AP, eventually transitioned into writing about world travel, tourism & destinations for national & international magazines. She continues to cover the travel industry as editor of Travel-Intel Newsletter reaching over 103,000 opt-in travel agents weekly, primarily in North America & syndicated on many sites around the net.

[email protected]
Marijo Douglass, Executive V.P. Operations & Data Development
A long and diverse experience in the travel industry from management of outbound operations including budgeting and promotions to establishing an inbound start-up division for American Express and international hotel marketing in Taiwan and Canada. With this experience as Executive VP she is responsible for helping Tours.com to achieve financial goals and objectives and increase operating performance. She is also responsible for verifying, processing and maintaining customer source submissions by reviewing data for deficiencies; and resolving discrepancies.
Colleta Fecteau, Social Media Director
Develop social media marketing strategies to expand the visibility of tours.com, build loyalty & website traffic. Using social media networks as a travel marketing tool to create communities & cultivate travel bloggers. Decide which social media are most valuable and which can be ignored. What our online messaging strategy should be. Identify the current tips & trends of social media networks & today’s social media experts. Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn combined have 2.5 billion visitors per month! Colleta will stay on top of these plus new trends in social media & keep us posted.
Paul Vuksich, General Counsel
California lawyer specializing in business law also acted as primary litigation counsel in multiple state and federal venues. Experienced in corporate governance, financial reports, registrations statements, litigation, litigation management, regulatory compliance, securities law, intellectual property protection, business transactions, software licensing, employment law, real estate transactions, GAAP accounting, books and records maintenance and financial and tax planning. Served for a term on the California State Bar Association’s Law Office Management & Technology Committee. A graduate of the University of San Francisco School of Law & West Point.
Bruce Douglass (杜恩德)
Responsible for all China relationships for tours.com within the tourism industry. Received his Bachelor’s degree in Asian Studies and his Master’s degree in Chinese. Worked and studied in Asia for a total of ten years. Worked in the travel and the hospitality industries in both Asia and North America for over thirty years for such travel industry giants as American Express and the Ritz Taipei .
Dr. Paul du Quenoy, Advisory Committee
Fluent in French, Russian, German, and Italian and is conversant in Spanish, Arabic, and Polish. As a consultant for a number of travel and tourism companies, arts endeavors, and educational institutions, frequently contributes commentary to various media outlets and speaks internationally on a host of scholarly, educational, and business topics. A trained historian holds a Ph.D. (with distinction) from Georgetown University and B.A. (summa cum laude) and M.A. degrees from George Washington University a Fulbright scholar in Russia and subsequently spent a year as a fellow of the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, DC.
Bradshaw Rovens, Student Business Development Specialists
Develop applications targeting & the student & young adult market that will combine the fun & variety of travel with emphasis on history & geography. Comprehensive knowledge of all departments in order to integrate the new applications seamlessly.

 History of Tours.com
   
Joe King, Founder & Chairman
A Native New Yorker
After graduating from Georgetown University, Joe joined the Hotel Corporation of America - International Division & was responsible for the marketing of hotels in the Caribbean - Bermuda, London, France, & the Middle East. He was active in New York City with the major travel entrepreneurs & airlines that invented in the late 60's "modern wholesale travel." He also worked for the Radisson Corporation and Holiday Inn. Joe dealt on a daily basis with the top tour operators of the era such as Gill Horache of Liberty, who established the model for today's mega agencies by popularizing the inclusion of price packaged vacations, Steve Lohr, who created European Ski Packaging, & Stan Fisher, the inventor of package vacations from abroad.

In 1980, Joe started King International, a tourism development consulting firm. King International has a distinguished client list seeking guidance in the intricate area of international tour packaging & marketing. They include the cities of Chicago, New York, San Francisco & Washington, D.C., the states of Virginia, and Maryland, & organizations such as American Sightseeing International, Lincoln Center, Carnagie Hall& Tavern on the Green. Joe is an established member of various tour & travel organizations & has participated on various Board of Directors.

In Memorium of our Beloved Founder Joe King January 27, 1941- February 13, 2009
How it Began...
Maria Polk and I gave our first Internet Conference in London, England - November 1994 and purchased the URL, tours.com, in March 1994. We have over 3 decades of tour and travel industry experience and tours.com was a natural name for us to register.

We had many ideas of how best to use this URL. We were very enthusiastic about the Internet and resolved to learn all about it. It seemed so logical and we found all the support and expertise that we would need right next door at Silicon Valley. We found that the tour and travel industry, however, did not embrace this new technology and in fact was hostile, perceiving it as a threat. The vast majority of tour operators and wholesalers around the globe were not on line and in fact only started putting their information on line in 2000 and 2001

In 1997 two themes dominated our thinking: The first was that the worldwide web is a great information tool, which is what Tim Berners-Lee had in mind when he invented it. Its value as an e-commerce medium had yet to be proven. And the second, access to vacation information was extremely limited. Only those companies that advertised, mailed brochures and captured the publics or retail agents attention got the business. That's when the Worldwide Directory of Tours & Vacations was born. The print medium is inadequate to do the job. Only the new electronic medium is capable. Now, tours.com provides a single digital source for information on vacations of any kind, to almost anywhere. Timely, in-depth, instantly available worldwide 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Since 1995 we have been hard at work compiling research on tours and vacations. We designed our own search engine and added many features, which will be of assistance to both leisure travelers and travel professionals. We went on line on November 8th, 2001, when we felt we had enough links to be a true worldwide directory.




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