A few weeks ago Brittany had her annual doctor check-up. During the exam, I was reading an analysis of what to expect from your typical 7 year old. I remember a specific quote in this document that stated that Brittany would show an increased desire for acceptance from both her peers and her parents. The only reason why that stood out for me was because I had already noticed this behavior and felt comforted that this was deemed to be “normal”.

I’ve come to the realization that some people don’t grow out of this need of acceptance or desire to qualify themselves as “normal”. Last Saturday I posted about our Quarterly Report that arrived with a $288K profit, much to the chagrin of our critics.

In that post I commented how the excuses would start to emerge and our critics would look at this Quarterly Report in a much darker light. I’ve spent the last week debating back and forth with a few of the better known critics, and one mystery woman, who desperately needed for me to see things their way.

I’m an optimist, and I typically find ways to look for the positive in anything I look at. I’ll give everyone and everything I come across a chance to show their good side of things. (Even our critics if you recall.) Some are not as not as open minded and frankly unwilling to see other points of view. So yesterday, the head critic decides to Even our critics if you recall.) Some are not as not as open minded and frankly unwilling to see other points of view. So yesterday, the head critic decides to post a blurb about how others outside the industry agree with his position. As if to say, “See, all these experts agree with me.”

I’m not going to belabor the fact that people are certainly entitled to view our financials however they choose. I’ve left it up to individuals to look at our company and collect a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ for years. But I do have to wonder why it’s so important for some individuals to proven right all the time like this.

I also have to wonder why this use of headlines from non financial analysts means a bloomin’ thing.

It’s not that some of these articles weren’t written by some very intelligent people, one might have actually been a lawyer. But this supposed lawyer didn’t even know that there needs to be brackets at that bottom of a financial statement to show (losses). No joke, the headline read “Online travel company targeted by AGs posts 3Q loss”.

I also noticed that the first article out in the press provided the following statement:

“The filings said Friday that it plans to raise cash by selling an office building in Edwardsville, Ill., as well as its Learjet aircraft.”

The Q3 didn’t mention the sale of the One Country Club Drive location. To be fair they were possibly referring to the 8-K filed earlier in the week, and the filing did state that a decision was made to sell the LearJet, and that they were “evaluating” the sale of certain non-core assets and raising new capital for future operations. I would assume that everyone knows in this day and age that when an asset is sold, cash in hand is a nice benefit of the transaction. Somehow, the transaction for cash for an asset like a building or jet is determined to be abnormal for the likes of YTB. I found it very odd concerning what the “filing said” being regurgitated word for word in every single news article out there. It leads me to believe that very few authors who posted their findings actually read the financial report, but instead read what others said and assumed what someone else found to be correct. (Another example of that below.)

I realize that critics want to make this out to be a “fire sale” to raise much needed cash. I suspect that our new Independent Directors have suggested that it’s time to tighten belts as other companies have. (Well, responsible companies have anyway.) With YTB moving everyone under one roof at the 1901 Wood River location, a 130,000 sq foot, state of the art, facility that has 59 acres to expand on, why keep the One Country Club location to boot?

Because the commercial market is currently as soft as it is, it was thought that the Edwardsville property would be on the market up to two years. In just a few months a contract had been received on the Edwardsville building One, with a closing set for December. With plans to relocate the staff to Wood River under one roof in January 2009 YTB accepted the offer. I honestly don’t know how anyone would turn down any offer on commercial real estate, especially right now, but apparently along with all the other hats and feathers of expertise, we can now add “Real Estate Agents” to the many, MANY, credentials of our critics who obviously know better than anyone else.

I’m also wondering why some are upset about decision to sell the LearJet? It was an overly flamboyant decision to begin with according to critics, and now that the company is leaning towards fiscal responsibility, a non core asset, the decision is again ridiculed. A couple of possibilities come to mind over just why some critics would be this bent out of shape.

One, this LearJet was Coach, Scott, and Kim’s ticket to paradise when they made off with all the millions they made off RTA’s backs, leaving all of us high and dry. Unfortunately for critics, it now looks like the YTB founders will either be flying commercial for a quick exit, or there is the slight possibly that a choice was made to stick around.

Two, I find such poetic irony, especially this week, that there was such animosity over the big three Auto Execs beat our Founders to the punch as they flew into town in luxury Jets looking for a multibillion-dollar bailout. Possibly the speculation was that it would have been YTB who would be first to pull a stunt like this, but now that the Auto Execs have taken away their thunder, there is no way to pin this type of blunder for the likes of YTB.

I’m happy for John and the others that they have found these well respected financial analysts that agree with them so they can feel normal. It’s obviously important to them, and their desire to ride with the status quo has been not only noted but accepted by this YTB’er.

Me, I’ll call it what I choose, and that’s financial responsibility to ensure the viability of the company I’ve grown to know and love. No more, no less.

I’d like to close with this comical find. I was back for a short visit yesterday morning to comment on John’s blog. I was reminded when I returned last evening how far the threads there can be derailed and while amused at not only the direction of the comments, I honestly stopped to ask why people actually spend time posting there.

It’s not unusual for threads there to wonder off in totally different directions and tangents. There was yet another “outing” of an RTA to show how stupid YTB’ers are, which escalated to a couple of RTA’s who are planning a group trip to the Inauguration of Barak Obama in Washington, DC on January 20th.

Honestly, travel happens to be this small groups first love and obvious level of expertise. This group of Professionals began to discuss how much better they would have been able to organize and schedule a trip like this.

Both questions and details of the trip were discussed among the group and many pointed to the scheduling, location, and supplier. Obviously finding all sorts of problems with how the group was formed, and the potential pitfalls of a group like this at that time of year. Links of the promotion were provided to both a WHAM forum and from there Regina Osei’s post highlighting the details of the trip they were attempting to discredit and derail.

Not all that odd or uncommon for our Traditionalists to offer their knowledge or expertise on how much better they can plan trips for clients. Just take a closer look and compare the comments with the actual promotion found in Regina Osei’s post. John in his usual excitement over finding a possible trip for his vultures to rip apart he incorrectly told the group that the trip to the Inauguration departed from Frostburg, Maryland.

Typical of the group, and much like authors of all those articles John eluded to earlier, the group blindly followed John’s statement of departure from Frostburg. They spent an exorbitant amount of time discussing this and began pull up MapQuest directions of the 150 mile, 3 hour trip, and also discussed just who the trip was scheduled with. One did in fact ask if American Destinations was involved, but nobody bothered to check, and nary a soul figured out that the trip left from Fredrick, Maryland (not Frostburg) through American Destinations who schedules HUNDREDS of tours throughout the Washington DC area on a yearly basis.

I was laughing so hard, I couldn’t bring myself to ruining their fun. So I just let it be and we’ll just let it be our little secret.

How odd that these are the same people who are telling everyone that WE don’t know a thing about travel and that WE are the embarrassment to the travel industry.

Go figure.

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

Learn How To Become A Travel Agent

Book Your Travel & Vacations With

Tags: Critics, Quarterly Report, SEC, YTB International

This entry was posted on Friday, November 21st, 2008 at 7:00 am and is filed under Board of Directors, Home Office, YTB News, YTBLA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.