The "Spin" On 12,000 Bookings...
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
