Just Picture It Now: The "Spin" On 12,000 Bookings...

The final numbers for the Carnival One Day Sale were announced by YTB yesterday afternoon. While I had seen, and wanted to post about this release yesterday, I also was curious to see how some of our "Travel Agents" would respond to the news, and what kind of "spin" they would have before I started to write. To their credit, the response is admirable and while I certainly don't believe YTB shocked the industry, we certainly did better than anyone expected when combined with the short notice and the assumption that we're not a "Travel Company" per say, but a "Marketing Company" in their view.

On November 8th, YTB booked more than 12,000 cruise passengers through gift certificates, individual, and group cruises. If you recall the Cruise Lines International Association said its Oct. 17 World's Largest Cruise Night (WLCN) is expected to generate 17,852 bookings.

Based on what we now know about the One Day Sale, I'm going to direct you to John Frenaye's response and perception concerning the take on YTB's One Day Sale and how it relates to CLIA's Worlds Largest Cruise Night. It happens to be consistent with the mindset and reasoning concerning our company, and John, to his credit, happens to be rather professional, and does provide documentation in an attempt to support his views. In addition, John's perception of who we are and what we do illustrates perfectly what so many of our opposition keep telling people about YTB regarding how little Travel is sold through our RTA's. These One Day Sales give us the best example that I can recall to actually compare apples to apples by using each of the numbers generated by the "One Day Sales".

John writes: "Based on the 130,000 Referring Travel Agents that participated, all things being equal, each would have earned 60% of the YTB commission or about $1.77 per Referring Travel Agent."

John later states: "So, 4,000 traditional agents produce 34,654 bookings (probably 70,000 passengers) resulting in sales of $43 million and commissions of $5.8million. This seems a bit more successful than 130,000 agents producing 6,000 bookings, resulting in sales of $2.4 million and commissions of $384,000."

There are several problems with the statements above.

Two words mysteriously disappeared between what is actually reported in Modern Agent and what John is trying to convey. The report states 4,000 participating agents "and agencies". In addition, the 34,654 and $43 Million being reported was not generated in one day, but between Oct. 15-31. The "One Day" or Oct. 17 World's Largest Cruise Night (WLCN) is expected to generate 17,852 bookings, which translate into an estimated $22.3 million in sales and more than $3 million in travel agency commissions.

I know the opposition would like to lead you to believe that all 130,000 RTA's participated in the One Day Sale to help the cause of YTB. If we are to assume that all 130,000 participated then we must also assume the entire Travel Agent Community participated in CLIA's World's Largest Cruise Night. I did some research, and found more than 20,000 ARC-accredited Travel Agency locations and Corporate Travel Departments. Since our opposition assumes that all YTB RTA's participated in the One Day Sale, can we therefore assume that all Agencies and Agents participated in CLIA's World's Largest Cruise Night? Liberty Travel has 200 storefront locations, with 8 - 20 Agents per location, that's a possible 4000 Agents from just one Agency. Just 10 Agents per Agency would consist of 200,000 Travel Agents overall.

Of course we couldn't average everyone in the Industry overall, and I can just see the comments listed below now.

Not all ARC Agencies participated.
Not all Travel Agents sell cruises, some just do tours, some just do corporate, some just focus on all-inclusive vacations.
Not all Travel Agents are CLIA certified and may not have known about the Cruise Night.
You can't assume that every Agency has a minimum of 10 Agents working for them, some are Independent.
We only booked a few on that very night, but we did book some between Oct. 15-31.
You can't lump the entire Travel Industry together and divide it like that.

Oh...but of course I could, and I just did. The average Travel Agent will make just $11.50 in commission for their efforts in CLIA's World's Largest Cruise Night.

That's all things being equal folks, but as you can clearly see, we don't play by the same set of rules as everyone else. And I promise you, there will be people who will take John's math and assumptions as fact and leave it at that. They don't realize that the math actually used doubles (34,654 not 17,852) CLIA's one day sales total, and divides in half YTB's numbers from 12,000 to only 6000 and we are to believe that's "all things being equal".

Go figure.

In closing, I don't mean to pick on John specifically. Like YTB, he just happens to be the most vocal of all the Traditional Travel Agents out there. With his industry connections in the media, he is far more capable than anyone in getting his views and opinions published in the press to promote his views. I will tell you that while John and I are on opposite sides of the fence concerning what is considered beneficial in our industry, we have formed a mutual appreciation for our difference of opinion. He has made very valid arguments in the past that I not only agree with but support. His perception of what YTB has actually accomplished with our successful one-day cruise sales event in November however happens to miss the mark.

For those of us who actually participated in YTB's One Day Sale, I say kudos to you for your effort and responsibility in helping YTB in their efforts to let the industry know that we have stood up and want to be counted in the same fashion as everyone else in this industry. What we book we keep as our own. What is booked by any other Agent or Agency in this industry is not of our concern or part of our commissions earned. All things being equal, we are independent and we book travel just like anyone else.

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Doug & Ronda Bauknight
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Labels: Carnival, CLIA, John Frenaye, Modern Agent, Travel MLM, World's Largest Cruise Night

Posted by TravelPro on Thursday, December 06, 2007 at 1:55 PM | Permalink

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Not everyone is spinning this Doug, some people see this for what it really is.

I found this post on one of the forums:
___________________________________

Well GOOD for YTB, and look they did one of the BEST DAYS EVER with out 3 cruise lines!!! WAY TO GO YTB.

It kind of funny that SO many of the gang bang anti selling travel agents sit here and bash you guys.. I for one do not care what your business model is or isn't. I just am impressed with the over all #'s.

Has me thinking of what promo's I can do to make more money, or I could sit here and make up a petition or bash you guys because I have nothing better to do?? hmmmmm..

p.s. I do not belong to YTB, I am just actually looking at a very impressive Sale....

___________________________________

Looks like we turned some heads. :-P

Posted by Anonymous | Thursday, December 06, 2007

Yes, I did see that response on the forums.

I find it amusing how something so simple can be drilled to death with so many assumptions. Some aren’t counting the Gift Certificates because it’s not necessarily attached to an actual ship just yet. (However, the money is paid in full unlike a deposit for an individual cruise booking.) Some are trying to calculate a dollar value, when they know that Carnival reports via passengers and not via dollars amount. Others are saying that's all we have left in us, exhausting everything we have in just one day, yet before the One Day Sale we were projecting over 80,000 cruise passengers in 2007 with a high percentage being first time cruisers. (Can we make it 92,000 now?)

It is what it is and no other Agency is looked at under the microscope like YTB is, nor does any other Agency have to prove themselves the way YTB does. Nobody cares or even questions what Liberty Travel did as a company with 1000 bookings and 1600 to 4000 Agents do they?

We need to remember that none of these Agencies are making the type of impact YTB is with our marketing program.

I suspect it will take many more Sales and many more years of climbing up the Power Rankings before the vast majority of these Petitioning Agents finally get it.

I also suspect that some never will. ;-P

Posted by TravelPro | Thursday, December 06, 2007

Assuming all things being equal on both sides is a fair comparison since we cannot know the exact numbers.

YTB average commission earned $1.77

Travel Agent average commission earned $11.50

Almost 7 times the amount of a YTB RTA

There you have it folks...

Anonymous said...
Assuming all things being equal on both sides is a fair comparison since we cannot know the exact numbers.

YTB average commission earned $1.77

Travel Agent average commission earned $11.50

Almost 7 times the amount of a YTB RTA

...Direct from my post above.

And I promise you, there will be people who will take John's math and assumptions as fact and leave it at that.
...and we are to believe that's "all things being equal".

Thanks for being the shining that shining example for us.

Posted by TravelPro | Friday, December 07, 2007

$1.77!?!?!?

All things being equal the average commission for YTB was $15.50, and the RTA’s 60% commission would be $9.30 per RTA.

Of course we all know that’s not an accurate reflection because even CLIA is “estimating” how many cruises were sold and what the gross and commission was.

I also like the point about Liberty Travel. How come nobodies questioning the 1000 cruises THEY booked????

Clearly a different set of rules apply to YTB and nobody else!

Posted by Anonymous | Friday, December 07, 2007

Doug, I noticed you signed Tom's petition and the numbers are low at 192. We could get 100,000 by the end of the week if Coach pulled the trigger.

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

Tom's petition is a joke. It was never intended to be serious (at least I hope not). Just read the petition statement....I think anyone that signs it runs the risk of looking more foolish than Tom.

Sign our pettition to show your support for travel mlm reps throughout our country . . .

Long live the hard working travel mlm reps.

Tom Coleman

King of the travel mlm universe

Sincerely,

Question---why does "Coach" need to give presumably grown businesspeople permission to support a position?

Why wait for him to pull any triggers (a sensitive topic these days anyhow) or to give the go ahead?

If you support it, be a freaking man about it and sign it. If you don't then don't. But for crying out loud you are waiting for some guy who calls himself "Coach" to give you permission? How do you go to the bathroom?

And FYI that petition is a lot less than the 192 it shows, there are a lot of voided and rejected names.

Posted by John | Friday, December 07, 2007

Truth be told, Tom’s petition is meant to be a joke. He just wanted to stir the pot and get the opposition focused on how useless a petition really is.

What Coach and YTB did with this Cruise Sale was far more effective and hands down more professional.

I would not call John Frenaye’s blog post in response to the YTB Carnival Certificates sold during the one day cruise sale honorable. His blog post is misleading and downplayed what the importance that the success of the victory of this event proved about YTB. In Dallas, TX on 111707 Kim Sorenson spoke at a meeting of YTB RTAs and their guests. Mr. Sorenson mentioned the results of the one day cruise sale were 12,879 passengers booked and an additional 1500 Carnival cruise certificates were sold. John Frenaye failed to mention $400 was the starting price for the cruise certificates. Mr. Frenaye failed to mention cruise certificates for 7-9 day cruises were being sold, all the way up to 12 Day European Tour certificates for two valued at $5330 were available to be sold. The price range of the cruise certificates sold were really valued between $400 - $5330.

Posted by Anonymous | Saturday, December 08, 2007

But then again, YTB did not release those numbers either.

What are the numbers of cruises sold in dollars? The number of each certificate type sold?

Post that and then brag about it. I suspect that the numbers were lower than hoped and this is the best way to release them and save face. Do you really think that if all 1500 certs were the $5330 certificates YTB would be screaming that they sold nearly $8 million in certificates?

Number of certs and pax sold is a non-number. What was the total sales?

Posted by Anonymous | Sunday, December 09, 2007