Gilbert Haroche, a co-founder of Liberty Travel, which began by busing vacationers to the Catskills and grew to become a national enterprise that delivered millions of thrifty tourists to more distant locales, died on Thursday in Manhattan. He was 87.

The cause was complications of colon cancer, his son Maurice said.

In 1951, fresh out of New York University, where he studied engineering and business, Mr. Haroche teamed up with a classmate, Fred Kassner, to open a two-desk, two-telephone agency in Times Square, which they called Liberty Travel. At its peak, in the late 1990s, the company, based in Ramsey, N.J., had 3,200 employees in 300 offices in 45 states.

In 2008, Liberty, which was privately held, and its subsidiary, Gogo Worldwide Vacations, which markets packages to other travel agencies, were acquired by Flight Centre, an Australian travel company, for a reported $135 million.

The two partners were in their 20s when they began expanding to destinations beyond the Catskills, like Miami, the Caribbean, Mexico and Hawaii. They pioneered discount “deluxe economy packages” that included airfare, hotel, car rentals, transfers and other extras that a traveler typically would have had to book separately.