Joe King - Beloved Founder & Chairman of Tours.com & Sightseeing.com Passed

Joe King, our beloved founder and Chairman of http://www.tours.com/& http://www.sightseeing.com/ and truly a travel and tourism visionary passed of complications from inoperable lung cancer on Friday, February 13, 2009 at 3:20PM EDT in his winter home in Boca Raton Florida, with his long time friend, Maria, by his side.

Joe was a native New Yorker, born in the city in 1941, turned 68 on January 27. He attended Lawrenceville and Canterbury School schools and then Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, Washington D.C. After college he began his lifelong career in travel and tourism. At first he represented hotel corporations based in Washington, D.C. and then Radisson Hotels and Holiday Inns, a job that took him all over the world. He was active in New York City with the major travel entrepreneurs and airlines that invented in the late 60's "modern wholesale travel." 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, and Stan Fisher, the inventor of package vacations from abroad. At one time Joe establishing the tour and travel department of t! he famous Tavern on the Green and the Lincoln Center in New York. Founded King International in 1980 and becoming an early pioneer of promoting the travel business through the Internet. In the mid-1970s Joe moved to San Francisco, which he adopted as his primary home for the rest of his life. It was there that Joe and his ex-wife and best fried of 40 years, Maria Polk, founded http://www.tours.com/and http://www.sightseeing.com/ one of the leading worldwide directories of tours and vacations. Joe remained active in many travel and tourism organizations and will be missed by us beyond words.

Contact: Maria Polk, President & CEO http://www.tours.com/& http://www.sightseeing.com/
Phone - 415-332-7916

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