Just Picture It Now

Monday, June 30, 2008

Agent Support Part Deux

I posted last week about Carnival’s Q2 Earnings Report, and found another article in Travel Weekly this weekend which goes right to the man in charge and puts Gerry Cahill in the hot seat. We found last week that Carnival is doing less direct business and relying more on Travel Agents to keep them afloat during the wave of feul price increases and muddy waters concerning the travel industry as a whole.

If you’re in YTB, you know about the informative call we had at the beginning of June with J. Kim Sorensen, (President, YTB International and CEO, YTB Travel Network) and Mike Julius, (Regional Vice President of Carnival Cruise Lines) to kick off Carnival Month. Our RTA’s also found that Cruise Month has been extended with Carnival alongside a special booking contest that was kicked off with both Kim and Ann Sedgwick, (Business Development Director with Carnival Cruise Lines) with our widely popular Cruise Night last Thursday night and the “All About Cruising” DVD we all downloaded. (First prize will be an all expenses paid 12 Day Mediterranean Cruise with air.)

The strong foundation and technology YTB has invested into providing us the very best resources for those of us out in the field are second to none, and many outside of the company (aka: clients) found this form of getting everyone together not only exciting but a very successful way to promote cruise sales.

Just why Carnival would do something like this with YTB was found in the Q&A with Gerry Cahill when he stated: “They can help us on the marketing side. They can also have the ability to reach customers we don't reach.”

With thousands of RTA’s getting just 3 or 4 couples together last week for this Cruise Night, Carnival had the ability to reach tens of thousands of potential customers all over the country at one time which Carnival may not have been able to reach otherwise.

Talk about bang for your buck! One night, one company and you cover North America, Canada and the Caribbean to boot.

It’s good to see that Gerry Cahill’s business decisions are starting to pay off, and it looks as if he certainly knows what he’s doing as he stated in the Travel Weekly article “It’s not hard to do. We have the ability to track how much profitability we get from every channel and every agent. You don't have to be a rocket scientist for that one. I did an analysis of what I think are the most efficient ways for us to distribute things, and I made certain decisions as a result of that.”

With the Cruise Night from last year being revamped and redone to help Carnival stay profitable and keep their place as “The Most Popular Cruise Line in the World” YTB is producing large numbers for Carnival once again. Sure, last week was a little different, but the goal is the same, and that’s selling our core product with our preferred supplier who “gets it”. Terminating your relationship with a company the size of YTB can be detrimental to your business health, so you simply implement minimum booking requirements to answer the “critics” who claim all we do is take advantage of the product, while still saving your bottom line and working with a company who has been a Pinnacle Award winner the last three years in a row.

Not bad for a “bean counter” if you ask me, and certainly not what some had forecasted a few months ago.

It aint rocket science.

Carnival has been a HUGE supporter of YTB from the very start, and I'm pleased that the new management sees the value in what we as a company has to offer.

PS - If you’d like to keep up to date with all the latest news, acquisitions, and developments with YTB feel free to sign up for my FREE Newsletter. Just like here, it’s loaded with food, water and sunshine to grow your YTB business.

Doug & Ronda Bauknight
AKA: TravelPro
Travel Agent / Networker
Phone: 678.458.5812

Learn How To Become A Travel Agent

Book Your Travel & Vacations With

Travel Reservations: 1.800.243.4450
RTA #24635

Labels: Carnival, Gerry Cahill, Kim Sorensen, Travel Agent Issues, Travel Bookings, Travel MLM, Travel Weekly

Posted by TravelPro at 5:24 AM | Permalink

Friday, January 25, 2008

Still Waiting? What the....

I started a huge task on Wednesday when I promised John Frenaye that I would get his questions answered. ALL his questions. Over the next couple of days, okay maybe weeks due to the length of this list, I’m going to focus on each of these questions one at a time. My goal here is not only to answer the question, but also point out why this question is even asked in the first place.

This will also be an excellent opportunity and tool for anyone with additional comments about each of the specific questions to get better clarification. Use the comments section to discuss each of the questions in greater detail. I remind you that I learned how to accomplish such a huge task from Brian Tracy and his courses, which teach that you focus on the each task one at a time, focus on the solution, break it down into manageable chunks, and before you know it, you’ve achieved your goal. (By the way...I just got an e-mail from Brian regarding a New Years Coupon to Save 20% on all his courses!)

It should be a really fun debate, and for those of you in YTB, take this information and documentation and use it. Here are the questions we have gone over thus far.

Question #1 - Why a compensation plan takes 12 pages to define?

Question #2 - How YTB arrived at $226 Million in travel sold for 2006. (Still waiting.)

Most of us know by now that the numbers were taken directly from our suppliers who we asked to provide numbers for us. Tabulating numbers that were directly booked off our web sites is easy to track and report. If that’s all YTB RTA’s did, it would be easily tracked and verified electronically. As our company matures and RTA’s get more and more comfortable with the concept of being a “Travel Agent”, many RTA’s are stepping out and speaking with and booking directly with vendors. (Our Group Cruise page is a perfect example of needing to arrange directly with the vendor first to secure price and availability for our clients for actual bookings.)

I’ve been dealing with accusations from those outside of our company for years about what YTB actually books. All anyone looks at is our SEC filings, which everyone “should know” as commissions, not gross sales, and these commissions are not reported to the SEC until YTB actually has the commission in hand. Doing otherwise, or what we “expected to receive” in commissions from booking made in 2006 is highly illegal and would put YTB in a bunch of hot water.

While Travel may have been booked in 2006, it is not reported to the SEC until the commission is received. Again, our Group Cruise page is a perfect example of what YTB has “booked”, but until these groups or clients have paid all deposits, commissions can not be reported to the SEC until YTB physically has the commission in hand. The Frye Thanksgiving Cruise for November 2008 is a perfect example of some 40,000 7 Day equivalent cruises YTB has booked with Carnival alone for 2008. (Did you catch that? 40,000 7 day Equivalent Weeks with Carnival and it’s only January.) While Carnival reports this group as a booking for 2007, it won’t show up on our SEC filings until Q4 2008.

When YTB’s number was given to Travel Weekly early in 2007, it certainly raised some attention on their end. So much so that on January 8, 2007 Kim Sorenson was interviewed by Travel Weekly after they found out how much business YTB “claimed” they did. Apparently the $250 to $300 Million that we “claimed” raised enough eyebrows that Travel Weekly wanted to investigate further. (Can we all agree you don’t just take a “Networkers” word for it?) So we know that Travel Weekly was aware of what YTB first reported at the beginning of 2007.

A full 6 months later, on June 25, 2007 Travel Weekly reports “verified” numbers of $226 Million for YTB, ranking them at #35 overall, and all hell breaks loose. I invite anyone wishing to find out more about how Travel Weekly came up with these numbers to read the bottom of page 25 of the report. You will note that Travel Weekly “sought to confirm accuracy whenever possible”, and also “reviewed responses for consistency and used whatever resources they had at their disposal to ensure accuracy”. You may also note that BCD Travel was not certified (#4 on the list) but the $12 Billion number was one they “generally give out”. (I don’t see any huff over that number anywhere.) You may also notice after further review there are several notations throughout the list concerning other companies that did not meat or exceed the required certification needs which was noted…but nothing mentioned about YTB?

Could that be because YTB satisfied all of Travel Weekly’s requirements concerning accuracy of $226 Million in Travel Sales?

October 22, 2007 Arnie Wiessmann described how over 8000 RTA’s flooded our Funshine Travel Training which had suppliers “gushing” about what YTB is doing concerning travel. (However, none would be willing to go “on record” for fear of the backlash they would get from Traditionalists in the market.)

November 2, 2007 Vicki Freed was quoted “It has been published that they [YTB] sold over $13 million of business with another cruise line and I can assure you that we also have millions of dollars in cruise revenue generated as well”

October 24, 2007 Kim Sorenson interviewed again by Travel Weekly as HE explains that the numbers were “gleaned” from many different sources, and they were “verified sales”. It should also be noted that Kim specifically addresses that these numbers come from travel and not “net revenue” from our marketing side. (Why should a Travel Publication even consider networking revenue?)

November 20, 2007 I went into great detail how these numbers were acquired, verified, and totaled.

November 20, 2007, (Same day) Kim Sorensen was named one of 33 “Most Influential” and warns that suppliers are now forced to decide if they want our business or not with a Top 50 Travel Agency.

December 7, 2007 Kim Sorensen was again interviewed, this time in Travel Trade, again quoting a $226 Million dollar figure in Travel Revenue and warns that 2007 numbers will reach approximately $550 Million in sales. (Putting YTB in the Top 20 overall.)

January 9, 2008 Carnival saves face AND its YTB business with a brilliant move by imposing new booking requirements for FAM’s. Clearly Carnival does not want to follow the Royal Caribbean lead made months earlier.

January 17, 2008 John is still waiting for an answer.

With all the sources and documentation out there concerning the $226 Million YTB sold, I if find it hard to believe that anyone is still waiting on this answer. If there is any question about the validity or accuracy, maybe those that want to contradict or discredit this number need to ask Travel Weekly and not YTB RTA’s?

Subscribe to Just Picture It Now for additional announcements and details!

Doug & Ronda Bauknight
AKA: TravelPro
Travel Agent / Networker
Phone: 678.458.5812

Learn How To Become A Travel Agent

Book Your Travel & Vacations With

Travel Reservations: 1.800.243.4450
RTA #24635

Labels: "Card Mill", Power List, Travel Bookings, Travel MLM, Travel Trade, Travel Weekly

Posted by TravelPro at 6:44 AM | Permalink | Comments

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Passenger Bill of Rights?

YTB was either moving forward with considerable growth and positive impact in the Travel Industry in 2007, or we experienced problem after problem - hit after hit, depending on which side of the fence you view our company. Travel MLM’s certainly had its share of attention in 2007.

Discount airlines and full fares alike also got considerable attention with meltdowns in 2007. You can find story after story about American Airlines, JetBlue, Skybus and United who went on the fritz. American Airlines was rated worst as of mid 2007 for leaving more than 15,000 passengers stranded on tarmacs without water or working toilets for hours. More recently, United Airlines has cancelled more than 1,100 flights since December 23.

I am aware of one airline, JetBlue, who responded by creating its own Passenger Bill of Rights and took responsibility for its own Customer Service. Unfortunately, this is an arrogant industry and many others have been slow to embrace the idea of putting the customer first. New York recently passed its own air travel protection act for flights leaving or arriving in the state. Airlines at JFK are required to provide water, refreshments and clean toilets if passengers are stranded on the tarmac for 3 hours. The Federal Government is also advising something called “Slot – Auctioning” to relieve congestion at JFK. A good thing right?

Not so much.

Many of the full fare airlines went to court to fight this act! Even IATA stepped in to tell the Bush Administration that their slotting idea was nothing more than an e-Bay approach. (I’m not well enough versed at the time of this post about this plan by the way to inform anyone if it is or is not.) It’s hard for me to even fathom this type of arrogance and lack of respect for another human being. While I’m not trying to discount some of the claims and issues towards YTB, at the same time fresh water and personal hygiene seem, at least to me, create new levels of concern.

Many on both sides of the fence are aware that Kim Sorensen was named in Travel Weekly in December as one of 33 most influential in the Travel Industry in 2007. Some however, may not be as familiar with another name on this list, Kate Hanni. Hanni contends that airline greed is the real problem and she is adamant in her belief that it will take a Government mandated Airline Passengers Bill of Rights to rectify the situation.

If the full fares want to move business operations to a third-world country where there are no working toilets and clean water, go right ahead. But this is America and here we have first-rate standards of hygiene. We also have a voice. It will be interesting to see how all this unfolds and if or when any “Passenger Bill of Rights” is implemented.

Subscribe to Just Picture It Now for additional announcements and details!

Doug & Ronda Bauknight
AKA: TravelPro
Travel Agent / Networker
Phone: 678.458.5812

Learn How To Become A Travel Agent

Book Your Travel & Vacations With

Travel Reservations: 1.800.243.4450
RTA #24635

Labels: air travel, Customer Service, Travel Bookings

Posted by TravelPro at 9:54 AM | Permalink | Comments

Friday, June 29, 2007

YTB Makes Travel Weekly's Power List...

In 2005, Atlanta based couple joined YTB International, Inc. as their Host Agency, enabling them to open their own travel business from home. Two years later, the company is now recognized by Travel Weekly as Leading Travel Agency in their 2007 Power List.

Atlanta, GA, -- Just Picture It Now, an independent representative of YourTravelBiz.com and BandBVactions.com, a home based travel agency of YTB Travel Network, Inc. announced today that it’s parent company YTB International, Inc. has been named as one of the country's leading travel agencies in Travel Weekly's 2007 Power List. As part of the Power List, YTB was ranked 35th among all travel agencies and included in the top 11 leisure travel agencies. YTB International, Inc. provides Internet-based travel booking services for travel agencies and home-based independent representatives in the United States, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands.

The yearly ranking included gross sales figures, ARC sales; travel related subsidiaries; percentage of sales from business, leisure, etc.; corporate structure as well as other matters.

Figures that Travel Weekly was able to verify through YTB include:

2006 Sales: $226.1 Million

- ARC sales of $52.1 Million
- $91.7 Million of sales fulfilled by third parties
- $175.2 Million of sales from hosting outside agents.
- 80% of sale from leisure, 10% from business, 10% other.
- 300% growth in sales and representative for each of the last three years.

Other leading travel agencies named in this year's Power List are Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, AAA, and American Express Travel Services.

Doug Bauknight, owner of Just Picture It Now, and BandBVacations.com added that the Host Agency, based just outside of St. Louis, is just 6 years old, and fulfill these large numbers with a team of RTA’s that are Home Based Independent Travel Agents. “Every time we open our mouth and tell someone that we own our own Travel Agency, the very next thing out of their mouth is “Really, can you get me a deal to _________?” Doug adds “This ranking simply shows how simple and viable our business model really is.”

Doug’s growing team would certainly agree. “If you had more time and more money…what would YOU do?” asked Chris Pappas, a team member based in Las Vegas. “I love that line! I already know what the answer is going to be.” Other team members have even been able to land large group cruises for family reunions, class reunions, Sunday School classes, even some company trips. “There are large commissions involved with group travel,” Doug adds “And now that the word is out how easy it is, it’s snowballed throughout the entire team.”

Combining the fun of travel with the speed of the Internet, multiplied by the power of referral marketing to provide the ultimate home-based business solution, YTB is taking
the industry by storm.

An advantage-rich, home-based business built around the Internet with an extremely lucrative compensation plan, YTB has become "The Choice" for over 100,000 to date. “In today's marketplace, many companies seek your time and attention, each claiming that their opportunity is the best.” Doug adds in closing. “It’s great to see that the industry is not only taking notice but agrees.”

About Just Picture It Now

Is an Independent Marketing arm of YourTravelBiz.com and primary focus on marketing on-line travel agencies through a nationwide network of independent business people, known as "Reps." Providing Internet-based travel booking services for travel agencies and home-based independent representatives in the United States, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands.

About BandBVacations.com

Is a home based travel agency also known as an RTA. (Referring Travel Agent) a division of YTB Travel Network, Inc., who establishes and maintains travel vendor relationships, books travel transactions of on-line travel agents (RTAs, now numbering over 100,000), collects travel payments and licensing fees, and processes travel commissions. Each RTA sells travel through a personalized Internet-based travel Website.

Doug & Ronda Bauknight
AKA: TravelPro
Travel Agent / Networker
Phone: 678.458.5812

Learn How To Become A Travel Agent

Book Your Travel & Vacations With

Travel Reservations: 1.800.243.4450
RTA #24635