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The
Caravan-Serai Team
Rita Zawaideh
Caravan-Serai Tours, Inc. wholly owned by Rita Zawaideh. Rita is an Arab-American
who has lived in the United States since emigrating here at an early age
with her family. She is an international business woman in addition to
small business owner and certified travel counselor. She holds a Masters
degree in Arabic studies from the University of Washington, and since
graduating, has written extensively on the Middle East and North Africa.
Rita has lived and traveled in many of the countries of the Middle East
and North Africa as well as Europe.
Rita founded Travel Express, Inc., the precursor
to Caravan-Serai Tours, in 1984 as a full service travel agency after
having been in travel agency outside sales for several years. She built
her clientele based on travel to the Middle East and North Africa, and
thus Travel Express became known as the US travel experts to these regions.
Today the vast majority of our business is to overseas destinations.
Because our reputation for such travel spread
by word of mouth from the many satisfied individuals, businesses, organizations
and educational institutions, Rita responded to the demand for tours to
the Middle East and North Africa by founding Caravan-Serai, Inc., a wholesale
land tour company which designs tours for individual travel as well as
groups, including many varieties of special interest groups. In order
to provide the best tour service possible, she maintains offices in several
of our destination countries.
With her frequent travels to the Middle East and
her discerning eye for quality products, Rita began bringing home products
and objet d'art not available here in North America. Originally for her
own personal use, then growing to include client's and friend's requests.
In September of 1998, "The Souk" was born. "The Souk" is the Arabic word
for "market" and in Seattle is also a subsidiary of Caravan-Serai Inc.
"The Souk" currently holds North American distribution rights to a number
of Middle Eastern products.
Outside of her office duties, Rita participates
in activities which educate the public about the Middle East and North
Africa, particularly their cultures. She founded Arab Film Distribution
and Salaam Cultural Museum. She frequently lectures to schools, organizations,
business and travel groups.
Maha Sarhan
Maha Sarhan is a Travel Agent with Caravan-Serai
Tours and is an expert in booking international travel. A native of Egypt,
she has lived in the US since the early 1990's. Maha occaisionally leads
groups to Egypt and Jordan and she has traveled throughout Europe. She
is fluent in French, in addition to Arabic and English. Before joining
Caravan-Serai Tours, Maha worked with KLM Airlines for 5 years. Maha's
main focus is international air bookings as well as independent tours
and vacation packages and cruises to popular destinations like Southern
California, Hawaii, Mexico, Las Vegas, and Florida. Maha enjoys vacationing
with her family in Mexico, Canada, and Lake Chelan.
Brenda Pierce
Brenda Pierce is a Tour Coordinator with Caravan-Serai
Tours. She helps coordinate the land tours and markets them to travel
agents and clients. She prepares the pre-departure materials and assists
with obtaining visas for groups and individuals. Brenda creates all of
Caravan-Serai Tours brochures and fliers, and email fliers.
Brenda has traveled to Egypt, Morocco, Syria,
Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Tunisia, Lebanon, and Israel, as well as to
many European countries including Scotland
and England. She also enjoys visiting
the Big Island of Hawaii and Mexico.
Brenda's interest in international travel started
with a year spent as an exchange student to New Zealand. This was followed
by a 2-month solo trip to Europe, backpacking across 8 countries with
a Eurail Pass. She eventually earned a degree in International Studies
(with a focus on the Middle East) from the University of Washington and
moved to Washington, DC to work for a non-profit educational organization
that promoted the strengthening of US-Arab relations. She managed several
of their educational programs, including the University Model Arab League
and the Malone Fellowship programs. The latter allowed her to travel twice
as deputy escort to Saudi Arabia with groups of professors. It was also
through the same organization that she traveled, as a student, to Syria
and Morocco, studying Arabic and the history and cultures of those countries.
Hamid Sharif, BA,
B.Commerce, MBA
Hamid was born, raised, got his education and worked in Tehran, Iran.
Around 1985 he left the country to live in Denmark for further education
and job training. He got married there, became the father of two sons
and enjoyed learning about European culture and society. In 1996 he immigrated
to the US and continued working as an accountant, and also started his
small tax and accounting firm. Hamid enjoys working with people and non-profit
organizations.
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