Travel Luminary and Longtime Agency Owner Larry Austin Passes at 87
by Richard D’Ambrosio
Austin's book, "…And away we went!" that chronicled his time as a travel agency owner was released in 2014.
Larry Austin, chairman and founder of Austin Travel and a tourism industry leader, has died at 87, after numerous illnesses.
Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, while in college, Austin took over an advertising agency from one of his college professors, eventually moving it to Hicksville, Long Island. As Austin told the story, soon after, his landlord suggested that they go into the travel agency business together, launching The Travel Services Mart in 1955.
The company ultimately grew into a 140-employee, $125-million agency, one of the 50 largest in its time. Austin sold the business to Protravel in 2010.
In a story he related to Travel Market Report several years ago, he talked about how he personally got involved in the dramatic evacuation of some corporate clients from Tehran, during the 1979 violent revolution that overthrew Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
“Grumman was a big corporate client for us, and they had nearly 2,000 people stationed in Iran teaching people how to fly the airplanes they built,” Austin told Travel Market Report in 2014, when he published his second book, “And Away We Went: Sixty Incredible Years in the Travel Agency Business.”
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His company and Grumman chartered a plane from Hawaii to get the first 200 employees home, and then Austin personally stayed in Frankfurt, Germany, to help coordinate the evacuation of more Grumman employees.
“Larry was an industry great, and a wonderful man,” said Chris Dane, president of Hickory Global Partners, who had been close friends with Austin for more than 30 years. “He was known as ‘Mr. Long Island,’ for all of the charities and things he did in the tourism industry there.”
Austin was a founder of the Long Island Travel Agents Association; was a leader with GIANTs, the industry buying cooperative; and at Hickory Travel Group and Travel Management Alliance.
“I am proud to say he called me his friend, and we will all miss him dearly,” Dane said. The last time Dane had seen Austin was in April.
In 1978, Austin proposed the creation of a Long Island Tourism Commission for his community. He served on a number of Long Island business group boards, charitable organizations and travel industry associations. He also was a board member for the Long Island Association, as well as chairman of its transportation and nominating committee.
In addition, he served as chairman of the Long Island Philharmonic, which ceased as a group last year.
He won the Distinguished Leadership Award from Long Island Business News in 1976 and 1997; the Harry Chapin Humanitarian Award from the Long Island Association in 1994 and a Lifetime Achievement Award from that same organization in 2011.
Austin is survived by his wife Eileen, and three sons, Jeffrey, Jamie and Stewart, and 10 grandchildren. Austin was born in Brooklyn to Sol and Ada Ausfresser. The family changed the name to Austin in 1948.
