Last year at this time California dropped a nice little present upon entering the 2008 Convention with a well timed lawsuit claiming YTB was a gigantic pyramid scheme. Now that’s it’s a year later, California is settled, and the meritless class action that followed California’s claims by a couple of ambulance chasers has been thrown out, we find ourselves back in St. Louis for another YTB Convention.

The ploy from the very beginning from critics was that these suits were designed to shut YTB down. We saw these comments all year long.

I suspect that after 18 months of “negotiating” and 7 months of discovery, they are pretty well versed on YTB.

However, I do think that this might never see a trial. YTB will continue to go through the motions of “defending” this “meritless” suit and then call it quits at the last minute.

CA will have achieved their primary goal of shutting them down. Then the class actions and the California suits will need to determine if they want to proceed against Tomer Tomer and Sorensen individually.

Of course, now that we’re on the other side of this smear campaign, none of them “recall” ever making such claims and they want us to dig up the quotes in order to save face. (Convenient huh?) Problem is, I have a complete file of links with claims just like this. They come in mighty handy now that they’re attempting to slither out of any responsibility of making such redundant, immaterial, impertinent, or scandalous matter.

When the Convention was announced and open enrollment began, some questioned if it was wise to make plans for something they never thought would materialize. It’s no secret that they have no faith in the model, or our founders, and put an enormous amount of faith in mere accusations that we now know couldn’t pass mustard when it came to actual legal backing.

So here we are, the morning of YTBU and a plethora of classes designed to educate, train, and motivate anyone who has a desire to better themselves. Courses include:

• Charting Successful Group Cruises
• Business Ownership vs. Business Opportunity
• Building Momentum through Travel Parties
• Travel Booking Made Simple
• Mental Scripts: Change Your Mind, Change Your Money
• Put Your Website To Work For You
• Don’t Be Undersold – Understand Cruise Pricing and Amenities
• Rewards of Educational Student Travel
• Power of Oneness – Millionaire Marriage
• Alaska 101
• Keys to Unlocking your YTB Vault
• Travel Insurance..How it Benefits You and Your Clients
• The Features & Benefits of Selling Cruise Vacations
• Making money with shopYTB
• Destinations and Princess Cruises
• Step by Step Travel Training
• Let Golf Vacation Travel Increase Your Gross
• YTB’s 2020 Vision and Why Belief, Edification and G.U.T.S. are Key.

In years past, YTBU has been the building block for our business and we always learn something new each year as both we and the classes have evolved.

I was talking to an industry veteran earlier in the week over the phone. I mentioned how many show up for this event each year. While we don’t have actual numbers at this time, I told this veteran that in years past YTB has hosted thousands of Website Sellers and Website Owners each year both here in St. Louis and then again in Orlando for our Funshine Travel Trade Show. He asked about how many “thousands”, and when I told him that it’s grown from 3000 to 18,000 over the previous three years, he gasped. Reason being is that those numbers are far greater than what the entire industry can produce for a single event. (And YTB does it with as one company.)

YTB ALWAYS produces the largest number of potential business for the industry. I even caught a report this morning how 50-60% of the participants for the CLIA training last week in Atlanta was YTB. Of course, the story is simply opinion and slanted with disrespect with stories that can never be proven. Even the percentage that was there) But once again we see notations that speak of YTB showing up in force when suppliers and associations host travel shows and events in an attempt to produce revenue.

By the way…this 50-60% being just YTB…Makes me wonder if they still think the pyramid is crumbling?

Nevertheless, suppliers are responding in kind as they see evidence in both the numbers YTB produces at these events in regards to Agents and the numbers YTB produces for their bottom line in regard to gross revenue. (They read Travel Weekly’s Power List too.) I took a look around at the supplier booths last night when we were registering for Convention. Here’s a list of suppliers that will most likely be at both here and at Funshine at the end of September.

• Carnival
• Holland America Line
• Honeymoonwishes
• Princess Cruises
• Cunard
• Spring Worldwide Tours
• Travelocity Partner Network
• Travel Guard
• Worldwide Golf Vacations
• American Destinations

Of course we have other vendors such as Staples, Vistaprint, Commonwealth Card Services, and Sprint who also offer services as a business owner. And this isn’t even our “Travel” show.

It appears that none of these vendors bought into what other overzealous critics had to say either. Truth of the matter is, YTB produces revenue for these companies, and if they’re wise, they show up at events like this to get their name in front of YTB Website Owners. And the best critics can do is tell stories of how they disapprove. That’s what happens when stunts like last year fall flat and illusions of this last years Convention being YTB’s last are proven not only to be unfounded, but our model and company as a far more formidable foe than they ever imagined.

And while critics show an obvious level of anger and bitterness over what they’re drinking, YTB is ready to serve cold, thirst quenching glasses of Kool-aid the next 4 days that doesn’t produce the sourness and bitterness that critics can’t seem to get out of their batch. You would think they might find another recipe, but then again, some actually think sewer water is fine.

It’s fun to watch.

Nuts, now I’m late for class.

Remember to check back to for more updates, live from Convention! (It’s actually here! Who knew?!)

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

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Tags: YTB National Convention, YTB News

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 29th, 2009 at 7:55 am and is filed under YTB, YTB Illinois Class Action, YTB International, YTB Lawsuit, YTB National Convention, YTB News. 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.