One of the most forward thinking and innovative suppliers in the Travel industry in my opinion is Carnival Cruise Lines. They were one of the first to embrace YTB in the early days, and haven’t been swayed by myths or phobias surrounding the Network Marketing industry. It’s just “business” – and they don’t get caught up in the drama. YTB has consistently produced sales for the cruise line which in part enables the line to maintain their distinction as “Most Popular Cruise Line in the World.”

In another innovative move – Carnival will be launching a “cash back” promotion next Monday (June 7th) of up to $160 per stateroom with a variety of cruises through February 2011.

While I’m sure YTB  would like to take credit for this promotion which currently provides “cash back” through ZamZuu, Carnival designed the program on their own to entice more people to book cruises.  Saving money is still a big hot button these days, and they’ve found a way to capture what’s hot. By offering “cash back” in amounts ranging from $80 per stateroom to $160 per stateroom via a shipboard credit, the hope is that it will tip the scales in Carnivals favor over other cruises offered during this time.

Cash back amounts are based on cruise length and can be redeemed on board during the cruise for a variety of options and amenities. If by chance you don’t use your allotted amount – you’ll get a check at the end of your cruise.

Credits will be offered starting on 3-day and longer cruises and include the Caribbean, Bahamas and Mexico from 15 convenient departing ports in the US.

The “Cash Back” details are as follows:

• $40 per person (max $80 p/stateroom) on select 3-, 4- & 5-day sailings
• $80 per person (max $160 /stateroom) on select 6-day or longer sailings

The shipboard credit is automatically applied on guests’ Sail & Sign accounts when they board their cruise and can be redeemed toward shore excursions, spa treatments, gift shop items and a variety of other shipboard purchases. Any unused funds at the end of the cruise will be returned to guests on debarkation day in the form of a check.

The new promotion is capacity controlled and applies to new individual bookings for category 4A and higher. Bookings have to be made between June 7 and June 30, 2010 to qualify for the promotion and it is valid with the “Fun Select” advance purchase discount fares. Guests must request fare code OCB when making the reservation.

The Cash Back promotion will be promoted nationally via TV commercials and local radio spots as well as through a direct-response TV spot. I suspect it will also be a very hot topic during tomorrow nights YTB Travel Network webinar with Ann Sedgwick. (For YTB Travel Network Agents only.)

If you happen to be on our newsletter, you already know how to register for this webinar, and I highly suggest that you get yourself registered. If you’re not on our newsletter – shame on you! (Get yourself registered now.) In the meantime, if you don’t have the info to get on this, send a support ticket to the home office through your back office and they’ll get you the hooked up with the webinar tomorrow night.

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Word must be spreading in the Travel Industry about YTB Travel Network’s Sale-a-Thon webinars. I can’t think of a single reason why it wouldn’t. It’s incredibly cost effective, (in fact it costs the supplier nothing but a little time) it provided suppliers a potential to reach thousands of viewers in one shot, and also enables the supplier to educate clients on the features, advantages, and benefits of thier company first hand.

Carnival, Princess, and Pleasant Holidays are all companies who have hosted multiple webinars with YTB Travel Network in the past because quite simply it works. (Why else would these others come back for more?)

Globus may be a new company to the growing list of suppliers and vendors that have joined YTB for these fun and informative events, but they’ve been around for more than 80 years. Their “family of brands” include not only Globus, but Cosmos, Monograms, and Avalon Waterways with itineraries covering Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Australia and Africa. They also offer several varieties or flavors of tours to meet the needs and demands of today’s traveler. From fully escorted tours, premium, independent, or river cruise vacations.

Clearly, there’s something for everyone.

Because of their vast array, Thursday nights Sale-a-Thon will offer the largest variety of tours and destinations YTB has to offer to date for one Sale-a-Thon. The live event kicks off at 8:00 EST, with rebroadcasts at both 9:00 pm and 10:00 pm right on your computer.

YTB Travel Network President Kim Sorensen will be hosting this event with Bob Black from Globus Thursday night right from our booking engine. A full list of the sales offered can be downloaded here.

With Globos being the largest tour operator in the business, they also have the largest number of “guaranteed departures” – meaning, there’s no worry about your dream vacation being canceled due to a lack of minimum bookings. Avalon Waterways also has the newest and most innovative fleet of riverboats in the industry. (We’re not talking paddle wheels here.)

If you’ve been thinking about a guided tour or want to head out on your own with an independent tour to do your own thing, you need to check out this Sale-a-Thon tomorrow night and see for yourself what Globus “Family of Brands” and YTB has to offer.

It will cost you nothing but an hour of your time, and you just might find the perfect destination and price for your next vacation.

Hope to see you online tomorrow night!

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We’ve talked about the shopping experience with ZamZuu several times over the last several weeks. It’s become such a simple process to Google a particular product and have a listing of all the suppliers who offer that product show up in a search complete with prices. Find a price you like? Chances are, it’s offered through the ZamZuu shopping portal – and you’ve got yourself an even better deal than Google can offer in the form of cash back.

It’s quick – it’s easy – and you get cash back for doing it. I can’t think of anyone who doesn’t like to save money, and that’s exactly what ZamZuu does for the average shopper with a free account.

Tonight, we’re going to offer up something for the business minds out there – people who are smart enough to look at ZamZuu as an income opportunity, not just a shopping opportunity.

Think about it. If you could offer up a free shopping portal to your friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors that enables them to save money when they shop online would you tell them? What if they told some friends? What if you could create a customer base of shoppers all shopping through ZamZuu and getting cash back for using your site? Would you be interested?

If you are – you can find out more about it tonight, February 16th, as ZamZuu offers up a live webcast at 8 pm Eastern, 7 pm Central, 6 pm Mountain, 6 pm Pacific to explain this growing trend in e-commerce and how you can benefit as a ZamZuu site owner.

This 30-minute webcast is designed to share the ZamZuu Income Opportunity and what it can offer you as a viable home based business. If you like what you see, you can get started with your own e-commerce website that’s ready to go the second you hit submit to start shopping and show others where to shop to receive cash back when they shop with you.

You owe it to yourself to take a look at this growing trend in e-commerce and how people are cashing in.

There’s no need to register, and if you miss the live webcast, it will rebroadcast at the top of each hour. If you like what you see, and need some more information on how to get started, just drop me a note or pick up the phone and call.

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I’ve said many times that the truth always has a way of coming to light. With so many rumors, misleading, incorrect comments, and even flat out lies concerning YTB, it gives me great pleasure to announce that a company critics attempted to sway to their side of the mud pit has fallen short. A couple months ago, critics attempted to spin comments I made concerning Pleasant Holidays just sitting on YTB’s booking engine as “dissing” the company. While I never really understood how my comment could even be considered as a “dis”, shortly after that post was written I noticed a number of hits from a particular IP address based in California. After putting two and two together, I realized that the hits were coming from inside Pleasant Holidays.

For clarification, here is the excerpt in question as written back in early February.

So while John attempts to convince everyone that YTB costs suppliers money, a supplier himself provides a rather unique Freudian slip and let’s the cat out of the bag that suppliers don’t hire YTB, suppliers don’t provide Co-op advertising to YTB, and suppliers only pay YTB for what YTB produces. That’s my friends is a model that suppliers NEED in an economy such as this, and the smart suppliers that actually get that concept such as Carnival Corporation, Globus, Trafalgar, MSC Cruises, Apple Vacations, Disney, and many other preferred suppliers reap the rewards of our business model. I can’t remember the last time Pleasant Holidays was even mentioned in a Travel Compass, a training call, or at Funshine. They do sit on our site, but nobody pays any attention to them because nobody from the company is promoting their features, advantages, and benefits. In all honesty, how much would it cost the company to get on a conference call the we provide, or hop in front of a camera for a video that we produce?

But no…they would rather spend thousands with a bunch of struggling Agents who demand co-op dollars in order to promote them with no guarantees of any return of their investment, when one call, or webinar would drive traffic and sales to help thier bottom line costing them virtually nothing.

After reading that again, it’s not hard to deduct the real problem was Traditionalists felt threatened and I was in fact dissing the Traditional Agent model itself. In anger and in an attempt to deflect attention off themselves, my article was twisted to take the focus off them and throw it back at me. The problem however came when critics decided to rat me out to both Pleasant Holidays and YTB and pitch what a bad boy I had been. (An activity they spend a considerable amount of time doing in attempts to discredit my experience and insight.)

In a very nice twist of poetic justice the business minds at either YTB, Pleasant Holidays, or both decided that what I offered in terms of a solution, (which was the original intent of the article) made considerable business sense. Less than two weeks after the smoke cleared, Pleasant Holidays showed up on a Thursday night training call for the first time since July of 2008.

Now to add even more insult to injury, our next sale-a-thon has been announced for next Wednesday and I’ll give you three guesses to just who that supplier might be.

And the first two guesses don’t count.

Not only was the sale-a-thon concept created to show the power of the what an army of MLM’ers can do to produce revenue for suppliers, it’s now expanded to our third supplier in recent months. As hard as critics tried to take what was said out of context and manipulate the message to mean something entirely different you simply can’t hide or deflect a good business idea that offers the absolute best ROI in the travel industry. No co-op money, no advertising money, no increase in staff to man phones, and you reach hundreds of thousands of potential customers in one night to generate revenue for your bottom line.

All while critics just won’t let go of this pipe dream that YTB costs suppliers money and the kick and scream that suppliers don’t even like YTB. I can’t say that I’m concerned any longer with the way critics attempt to perpetuate the myths and misconceptions of how YTB operates or how the vast majority of suppliers view our model. (Especially when examples like this keep surfacing.) I still can’t help but wonder if some will ever let go of their illusions of grandeur and move on, or get back to doing what they emphatically proclaim they love. (Quality service and selling travel.)

You would think they’d be much happier and far more pleasant to deal with if they did. But instead they feel that agitating, condemning, or policing others is the way to go with the idea that vomiting will make them feel better.

Which begs the question with what we’ve just learned.

How’s that workin’ for ya?

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Back around tax time this past year, I did a post on tax tip’s for owning a home based business, based on Ron Mueller’s book “It’s How Much You Keep That Counts!“. I just got word about a FREE webinar from the Tax Guru himself for this Sunday night, September 16th, @ 9:00 PM Eastern Time Zone.

While the Travel Industry and YTB certainly has tax benefits all it’s own, you may find this information useful if you are currently working from home, or considering starting a home based business. Ron’s book certainly opened my eyes to what I can claim legally with the IRS by converting what I considered personal expenses into a business expense. It’s saved us THOUSANDS each and every year we’ve been using the information and tips Ron has supplied.

Some of the topics will include:

~ Increase Your income Without Asking For A Raise!
~ Save $500 For Every 1000 Miles You Drive!
~ Create A Bullet Proof Record Keeping System!
~ Hire Your Children, The Right Way!

System Requirements:

PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, 2003 Server, Vista

Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.3.9 (Panther®) or newer

If you’d like to participate in the webinar, feel free to contact me and I’ll forward the information to you. But hurry, space is limited and filling up fast!

Hope you can join me on the call!

PS - If you're involved with YTB, sign up for our FREE Newsletter. As a Website Owner or Website Seller, we'll keep you up to date with all the latest news, acquisitions, and developments with YTB.

PPS - Subscribe to the Just Picture It Now RSS feed, (including e-mail) for all the latest posts and updates found right here!

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