Duet anyone?

If you haven’t yet registered, the Early Bird rate is set to expire on Jan 31, so I am not quite sure what you are waiting for! :)

Go Register Today!

We had such a fun run in Las Vegas, didn’t we? What is not to love about Vegas? The lights, the entertainment, the food…the drinks! But we heard you. You wanted a new venue. The cosmic forces aligned and this year we are going to the sunniest place on Earth. June 27-July 1.

Quick, go write those dates down. I’ll wait.

Better yet, head over to the newly launched Conference website to get the lowdown on all of the juicy details. If only I could tell you everything that Lauraday and her busy little bees are cooking up for this year you would be amazed. Let’s just say it involves very, very big things.

Go. Register today!

Congressman Mike Arcuri (D-NY) and Small Business Committee Chairwoman Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) have jointly agreed to send a letter to United Airlines President Glenn Tilton to express their concern over the unprecedented policy change recently announced by United Airlines. Specifically, the letter highlights the impact on consumers and small businesses that would result were United’s trial balloon to be adopted as standard industry practice. The letter adds that requiring travel agents to obtain and use their own merchant accounts instead of using United’s merchant account will shift both large risks and large costs to the consumer, and it asks for a delay in implementing the policy until Congress can more fully understand its implications.

If you oppose the United policy, please contact your Member of Congress today and ask him/her to sign the Arcuri/Velazquez letter to United Airlines. You can refer them to Chris Wilcox in Mr. Arcuri’s office at (202) 225-3665 if they have any questions.

If you do not know how to reach your Member of Congress, there is a locator for the House of Representatives at this website:  www.house.gov

Speed is of the essence here, so if you want to voice your opinion you should do so before the end of the day Wednesday.

Thanks as always for your support of Vacation.com

Steve Tracas
President & CEO, Vacation.com

“Even if you did not receive the letter, this move by UA could have serious consequences for your business. UA has stated that the purpose of its move is designed to “reduce distribution costs”. UA’s message makes clear to us that the real game is to undermine the full-content deals made in 2006 by forcing agents to book clients direct and thus outside the GDS. This follows because no reduction in credit card costs eventuates if the client goes around the agent and makes a credit transaction directly with UA. Likewise, no credit card costs are saved if the agent goes directly to United.com for ticketing. The only way UA saves “distribution costs” is by avoiding the GDS.”

The travel agent distribution channel plays a vital role in distributing the majority of the product for the cruise industry, the tour industry, as well as many airlines, and is a purchaser of GDS product and services. Ultimately these actions destabilize the agency channel that others depend  upon and support to distribute their products. Unfortunately, the weakest link in the travel and tourism industry today are the airlines, which continue to undermine other providers who bring valued products and exceptional customer services to the traveling public.

One of the unfortunate consequences of the domestic airline industry moving away from the agency channel is that they have a limited ability to actually ‘sell’ their products. Their major outlet for sales are on-line or via a kiosk… Not a very compelling way to extol the benefits of  ‘buying-up’ to ‘more leg room’; frequent flier benefits; or an upgrade. The cruise lines and tour operators still use the channel as intended…. To ‘sell’ their products and to generate incremental revenue. As the PhoCusWright study stated: “The travel agent channel offers a significantly higher average transaction value than online channels”.

The core belief of our network at Vacation.com is to support those suppliers who support Vcom  and the travel agency distribution channel. It is very important that we continue down this path and continue to work with suppliers who work with us and value the work that the agency  channel provides. When booking air travel, or any other supplier, the agency community needs to continue to support those who support the travel agent and their clients.

Steve Tracas
President & CEO
Vacation.com

On behalf of our entire Celebrity team, I want to sincerely thank you for choosing us to receive your prestigious Power of the Partnership Award – Premium Cruise Line.

From our local Sales Managers, Regional Sales Managers, Directors and Field Vice President to our Customer Service, Reservation and Sales Support staffs to our National Account Vice President and team and fellow On-board associates…we all take great pride in this award. And…we’ll continue doing EVERYTHING within our power to earn your trust and appreciation every single day, again and again and again. After all, that’s what partnerships and friendships are all about.

You all work very hard every single day in support of Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Cruises and we cannot thank you enough. Your enthusiasm, professionalism and expertise are un-matched… YOU are, no doubt, the secret ingredient in our mutual recipe for success!

Again, thanks to each and every one of you. We look forward to seeing you at next year’s conference.

Sincerely,

Dondra Ritzenthaler
Senior Vice President, Sales

The winners from our 2009 POP Awards Ceremony

Supplier representatives, Vacation.com staff and member agents gathered again this year to celebrate all that is good and wonderful with our industry at Friday afternoon’s Power of the Partnership (POP) Awards ceremony.

Voted on by Vcom members, the POP Awards recognize those suppliers who consistently meet and exceed the needs of our member agency, and let them know how much their partnership is appreciated.

The big winners this year were:

 Congratulations to all our winners, and congratulations to Vacation.com for having such wonderful Preferred Supplier and such stellar member agencies to choose from!

Moderated by Travel Weekly’s Arnie Weissmann, the Industry Panel—a new addition to the Conference lineup—featured Vicki Freed of Royal Caribbean; Steve Gorga of Travel Impressions; Bill Smith of Crystal Cruises; Michele Saegesser of Viking, Scott Nesbit of Globus; and our own dynamo leader, Steve Tracas.

Topics ranged from agent commissions to tactical pricing, with a highlight coming when Arnie went to the live twitter feed to get questions from the tweeting audience.

The panel was lively and interactive, and had a good mix of banter and serious discussion.

Engaging insights into the current state of the industry…just another benefit for attending Conference. We will try and post some of the video highlights, check back later!

EZguider Book Off!

There have been many famous boxing matches in Las Vegas (who could ever forget Holyfield-Tyson 2?), but none that compared to the battle slugged out yesterday morning in the EZguider Lab room.

You see, we determined that you can shop and book a cruise on EZguider faster than going through a supplier’s Web site or call center. Agents just couldn’t believe it—so we set up the Official Book-Off Content to settle the score.

In one corner, we had OVC’s Heather Wege using EZguider, Vacation.com’s leisure-selling super-solution. In the other corner, we had several experienced agent volunteers ready to use a supplier’s call center or Web site.

All contestants were given the same scenario that included two adults, ages 62 and 65, looking for a choice of 5-7 day Caribbean cruises from Ft. Lauderdale/Port Everglades in a balcony suite with a pre-determined budget, including tax and port charges. They simultaneously started the booking process. We then timed how fast Heather completed the booking on EZguider, and then waited, waited, and waited some more for the other agents to finish.

Through the trials, the winner and new champion was EZguider! EZguider easily knocked out the competition, average six minutes per booking, while Web site bookings averaged 19 minutes and call centers 22 minutes.

Just think how much time you’d save if you booked all your cruises (and tours, and air, and insurance, and pre and post cruise solutions) through EZguider!

This year, the Internet Café is more like an office away from the office. It’s in an actual meeting room instead of being out in the open by registration like in years past, with four computers and a printer.

We’ve asked attendees to not dawdle here at the café and only spend about 15 minutes per session, and so far everyone’s been good about that. Though the guy sitting next to me has been playing Mine-Sweeper for a while now, and I’m about to kick him off.

The lines to the Internet Café have been shorter than anticipated, mostly because so many agents are using their iPhones and Blackberries to surf the Web and Twitter about Conference. Are you following Vacation.com’s Twitter feed? You should be at www.twitter.com/vcom1. Make sure to hashtag your posts with #vcomconf!

I’d like to give a shout-out to the four sponsors responsible for this café: Viking River Cruises, Travel Impressions, Classic Vacations and Globus. Thanks guys!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Vacationcom/90446443280

The Ribbon Cutting to start the show!

Packed.

That’s the only word I need to describe Thursday afternoon’s Preferred Supplier Trade Show.

Packed.

The Augustus Ballroom was packed with suppliers, their booths were packed with information, the aisles were packed with agents, the delegate bags were packed with logo-emblazoned tchotchkes, and the selling power of all was packed with general awesomeness.

The tally-tickers  couldn’t keep up with the flood gates when they opened of all of the agents entering the Trade Show, which lasted nearly four hours, ending with a slew of supplier-funded prize giveaways which will be announced Friday at the closing event.

Overall, the Trade Show was a smashing success, and also a great setup for the party tonight at the Miracle Mile Shops!