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 Cuba, Syria and North Korea due to US Government Regulations - OFAC)

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 1995. 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 borne. 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.