‘Travel Agent Advisory

Board’

By Rusty Pickett, MCC, ECC

As many of you know, I am one of the Home Based agent members of the CLIA Travel Agent Advisory Board. We meet about quarterly to discuss ways to improve CLIA’s service to its members and I routinely solicit and get E-mails from fellow agents with great ideas and comments for moving CLIA forward — the emphatic goal of CLIA president and CEO Terry Dale and the rest of the staff at CLIA.
I recently received an E-mail from a diligent professional agent from Texas who had attended a networking luncheon and listened to a “travel company” solicitation to join their ranks. In their presentation, the company displayed a CLIA Travel Agent ID card, which the presenter claimed people who signed up as “agents” would receive. When this agent questioned this claim, the presenter related that someone from CLIA had just been to the travel company headquarters and had signed a contract with CLIA. The agent’s E-mail to me said the presentation sounded exactly like a pyramid marketing scheme, and asked that I contact CLIA, which I was more than happy to do.
Bob Sharak from CLIA quickly responded: “We had contacted [that company] in the past and advised that their marketing the CLIA card and positioning of ‘travel like a travel agent’ was in conflict with CLIA’s conditions of affiliation. They were issued a cease and desist. That cease and desist was not complied with and on Oct. 17, 2005, CLIA terminated their membership. They are not a current member, and no CLIA ID cards are being issued to [that company].” I forwarded this response to the agent from Texas who said she called the number on the business card she had received from one of the presenters who said that the agent had been “very rude and had messed up their presentation because she had bad-mouthed them.”
Travel Trade is very diligent in reporting on the many pyramid marketing travel companies out there. I had a client who joined one of these companies because she wanted to be a professional travel agent in the worst way. She asked my advice. After some basic, and I mean basic, Internet research, it was clear that this company was a pyramid scheme. I advised her to get out of her relationship with that company and become a professional. I am happy to say that she attended Travel Trade’s Winter CRUISE-A-THON and is forming a relationship with one of the great host agencies listed in Travel Trade. She’s well on her way to becoming a professional agent. Help out those in your community who want to enter our business.
Travel Trade has armed all of us with the information that we need to search out these companies and expose them for what they are. Many if not all of them promote obtaining the CLIA Travel Agent ID card — most likely not legitimately. Become part of the ‘Travel Agent Advisory Board.” Listen to what is happening in your community in our business, and if it sounds wrong, expose it by every means at your disposal. Feel free to contact me on CLIA-related issues. I can assure you that CLIA takes each comment seriously. Take on suppliers — yes, least one cruise supplier markets to an exposed pyramid travel marketer. Together we all can make a difference.