Just Picture It Now: Travel Retailer's Taking Aim At YTB

From day one, YTB's goal was to become the number one Travel Agency in the industry. That goal was created by three men, J. Lloyd Tomer, AKA: Coach, his son Scott Tomer, and J. Kim Sorensen back in 2001.

Fast forward a few years to the summer of 2007 and we see that YTB starts popping up on the radar in a publication called Travel Weekly in what's known as a Power List, and the industry was given a glimpse of what a Travel MLM can not only accomplish, but how quickly it is rising. What was written off as a joke by many of the traditional travel professionals in the industry suddenly becomes a major threat.

Thursday (below) I posted on the news the Royal Caribbean has terminated it's relationships with Travel MLM's which by our "professionals" are deemed nothing more than "Card Mills". Knowing what kind of numbers YTB is producing, and being able to verify more than $13 Million in sales with Royal Caribbean by YTB in the first 9 months of 2007, I boldly stated that there was no way Royal Caribbean would terminate the YTB relationship. They simply wouldn't throw that kind of money out the window.

While it certainly looks like I have egg on my face due to news and events of the past 24-48 hours, and I certainly missed the mark on my theory that Royal Caribbean didn't want to alienate over 100,000 RTA's who were pointing people to their ships, I'm gathering information currently that certainly supports that our "Travel Professionals" not only know what YTB is doing, but these same professionals are taking dead aim at yet another major threat to their livelihood. Make no mistake, YTB has their attention and history has taught them from lesson's they have learned from the Airline industry in the late 1990's, and the growth of on-line travel agencies during the turn of this current century, that another major threat is on the rise.

And Royal Caribbean is caught in the middle of the cross fire.

As much as I am dieing to spend the day collecting information and linking to facts to support these statements today, oddly enough, I need to head to a YTB Certification Class to help train hundreds of new YTB RTA's here in Atlanta on how YTB sold $226 Million in Travel in 2006, and more specifically $13 Million in Cruise sales with Royal Caribbean our first 9 months of 2007.

In the meantime, one word comes to my mind..."Irony".

While our "professionals" over at the ARTA are giddy over the news that their collective efforts have scored what appears to be a major victory, this story is far from over. And because this story has peaked the interest of so many in the industry between the "Brick and Mortar" vs. "Click and Order" I have some really juicy content for the next few posts.

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Doug & Ronda Bauknight
AKA: TravelPro
Travel Agent / Networker
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