Harold Silverman

My father was a travel advisor, and my history in this business goes back to the 1970s. I was working as a wedding photographer at Windows on the World and one night, after taking the final shot of the bride and groom, the newlyweds asked me to sit at their table. Seated there were the presidents of Chess King, Merry-Go-Round Enterprises and Bugle Boy Industries, and I walked out with their business cards, brought them to my father and turned his million-dollar company into a three-and-a-half-million-dollar business overnight.  

It was a family travel agency. My younger brother worked with us, and when our father passed away, we hired our mother and put her in the front office, where she could work with walk-ins who wanted to book a vacation. It was a corporate agency with a storefront office, and at one point I won a contract to handle all of the federal agencies on Long Island, including the Federal Aviation Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, the National Weather Service and others.

I then left the travel industry to pursue other goals, including opening a wine shop, but I found I missed the business. So I came over to Tzell in 2004 and started with wine industry contacts as my first clients, and I booked groups of owners who were taken all over the world to visit wineries.

My son was a Boy Scout and his scoutmaster was involved with a not-for-profit organization which went to Nicaragua for charity purposes. They became my customers and I have been working with them right up to today. Their donors also contacted me for trips, so many of those individuals have become my high-end luxury leisure clients.

A lot has changed since that wedding at Windows on the World, including the travel business itself, but I have found it to be deeply rewarding, whether I am booking a luxury getaway, a group trip to build houses in Central America or a business meeting in London. Whatever your needs, I hope you will come to me to make the arrangements.