YTB, the travel agency that has been accused of running a multi-leveling marketing pyramid scheme, won’t have to appear in an Illinois courtroom in the near future.

That’s not to say it’s off the hook for the labels — just that the former YTB referring agents, as they’re known internally,  haven’t done a good job of explaining their position. U.S. District Court Judge G. Patrick Murphy declared the complaint paperwork from the group action  “a good deal of flabbiness in the sprawling pleading before the court consists of paragraphs of legal argument challenging the courts earlier dismissal of the ICFA claim of the non-Illinois plaintiffs.”

Had he himself been more pithy, that would read, “I’ve already told you that non-residents can’t file in this lawsuit.”

This same judge, however, did tell an Illini gentleman who filed a case in June that his original complaint wasn’t the U.S. District Court for Southern Illinois’ venue, but he could refile if he shows how the gripe “implicates consumer protection concerns.” So the show could go on.

2009 not smooth sailing for YTB

Meanwhile, YTB is settling a similar lawsuit brought by the attorney general in California.

Yet the outcome in any courtroom shouldn’t matter to a hill of beans. For starters, if the travel industry deems that it has a rogue player in its midst, the other players certainly have the strength to shut it down. Take, for instance, the Cruise Line International Association (CLIA), which implemented tougher standards to join and attain accreditation this year. Pure MLM recruiters don’t have time to earn no stinkin’ badges. And as more suppliers demand a CLIA or IATA card to claim a discounted price on tours, this forces folks to either get educated in the field or scrub the perks.

MLM recruiters are big on perks.

Some suppliers, like Royal Caribbean Cruise Line and Norwegian Cruise Line, simply refuse to accept bookings from YTB agents. This, of course, forces the serious travel agents to move to host agencies that are in good standing. And never underestimate the power of snubbing: A common observation among YTB agents is that they are treated with disdain when they call suppliers for quotes and questions. It may be high schoolish, but it did work then and continues to work now.

Finally, there is a third leg of this stool known as personal responsibility. Anyone who forks over money to buy a YTB franchise today and claims they were duped can’t spell YTB at Google. The accusations, complaints and earnings reports are extremely visible. They’re currently selling stock at .12 a share, according to Motley Fool — yet another pithy remark from someone in authority.

Photography: Nattu

EyeforTravel has lined up some heavy-hitters for the Travel Distribution Summit to be held Sept 16-17, 2009 in Chicago, at the Westin.

EyeforTravel Travel Distribution Summit

It’s a great opportunity to meet and network with over 700 top executives from online travel suppliers and distributors including Expedia, Orbitz, Priceline, STA Travel, Google, Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Hilton Hotels Corp., Continental, Jetblue, American Airlines and many more.

But the thing that sets apart this event is that EyeforTravel has managed to fill in 2 days of panels and presentations with some genuinely hot topics being discussed and debated by the aforementioned heavyweights and trend-setters.

Day One starts with a panel on the balance of power between OTA’s and suppliers, with Jeff Davidoff, CMO, Orbitz; Matthew Crummack, SVP Lodging, Expedia; and Julie Atkinson, Sr. Director Global Online Sales and Distribution, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide.

This discussion is a big deal and a hot subject right now, given the OTA price wars and the steep recession-influenced discounts that suppliers are offering on their own websites.

Day Two’s highlight is the panel on ‘Innovations in Search.’  Speakers for this panel include Ted Souder, Head of Travel – Central Region, Google; Anne Payne, CEO, BeDynamic; and Yen Lee, President, Uptake.

Semantic Web

You’ll learn about preparing for the Semantic web, and the website changes needed to ensure optimized results in semantic search. 

You’ll learn how to build a keyword list that’s based on consumer behaviour and purchasing habits. Find out how Google actually sees your site, how to engage customers on your websites for the best conversion rates, how to accurately measure ROI, and get the lowdown on mobile search and geosearch.

In addition, the Travel Distribution Summit offers a host of speakers sharing their expertise and forecasts for crucial distribution trends, finding value in the new economy, deploying social media to improve distribution, the links between online trip-planning tools and offline distribution, benefits of meta-search for suppliers, ancilliary revenue strategies and the increasing importance and changing landscape in the vacation rental market.

To make it even more attractive, EyeforTravel has scheduled two more conferences on ‘Revenue Management and Pricing’ and ‘Mobile Strategies for Travel.’ One pass gives you unlimited access to all three conferences.

Plus, if you’re planning on staying at the Westin, you can get a special EyeforTravel discount. For flight discounts, go to www.jetblue.com/promo and enter promotional code ‘EyeforTravel’.  This discount is valid for outbound flights Sept 13-15, 2009 and return flights Sept 17-19, 2009.

by Barbara Weibel at Hole In The Donut Travels

Trazzler, the travel destination website that recommends trips unique to a user’s location and travel personality, recently announced their biggest contest to date, the #NYCGO Writing Contest. In cooperation with nycgo, the official source of daily information about all there is to do and see in New York City, Trazzler invites travel writers to describe “a place that not only satisfies your thirst for a change of scenery, but goes beyond this, breaking the spell of everyday existence and providing the refuge, relief, or pleasant contrast that we all crave, especially in the summer”

The grand prize is a $10,000 contract to be a writer-in-residence for two weeks in New York City. The winner will be paid to write 30 Trazzler trips covering the five boroughs of NYC. Hotel accommodations (14 nights) and round-trip airfare will provided by co-sponsors AKA luxury hotel residences and JetBlue. Additionally, each of nine runners-up will be awarded $250 contracts to write ten Trazzler trips and four editors’ choice winners will receive $500 contracts to write 15 Trazzler trips.

The “Oasis” theme of the contest leaves the subject matter open to interpretation. An oasis could be an urban park, a gourmet meal, a swimming hole on a hot summer day, a romantic hideaway, a museum… really any place of extreme beauty, culture, flavor, respite, or relaxation.

Dates:
* Contest submission start date: Wednesday, July 22, 2009, 12 noon EDT
* Contest submission end date: Monday, August 17, 2009, 11:59 am EDT
* Judging period begins: Monday, August 17, 2009, 12 noon EDT
* Judging period ends: Monday, August 31, 2009, 11:59 am EDT

How to Enter:
* 1. Sign up for Trazzler (be sure to provide a valid email address, even if you use Facebook Connect)
* 2. Submit your entry by clicking on “Write a Trip” and filling out the required fields
* 3. Click the “Trazzler #NYCGO Contest Entry” checkbox at the bottom of the “Write a Trip” page
* 4. After your trip is posted, you will be invited to share your trip on Twitter and Facebook
* If you have questions or problems, contact the Trazzler team in the help forum

Any entry displaying the text “Trazzler #NYCGO Contest Semifinalist” immediately following the trip description on or before Monday, August 31, 2009 is a semifinalist and cawill automatically be entered in round two. The 10 trips that are wishlisted the most by the greater Trazzler community between Monday, August 31, 2009 (12 noon EDT) and Monday, September 14, 2009 (11:59 am EDT) will pass to round three. Winners will be announced during the week of Monday, September 21, 2009.

The U.S. Green Building Council, The American Society of Interior Designers (ASID), and The Hospitality Industry Network (NEWH) are sponsoring the Sustainable Suite Design Competition to help drive green design practices within the hotel industry.

Sustainable Suite Design Competition

The winning design will be built as a model guest room to be presented as an educational display for the design industry, hotel owners and brands, and corporate travel executives.

Additionally the winning team and design will be profiled in Hospitality Design, ASID ICON, and the NEWH Magazine. The Sustainable Suite will be unveiled at HDExpo in Las Vegas in May 2010.

There’s also a ‘Students & Young Professionals’ award, and the winners of this award too will be mentioned along with the ‘Professional’ award in all the aforementioned magazines, but their design will not be built out.

The judges for the competition include Helen Jorgensen, Sr. Director of Purchasing, Host Hotels & Resorts; David Mahood is the V.P. Sustainability, NEWH; Carlie Bullock-Jones, ASID, LEED AP, Sustainable Design Consultant with Ecoworks Studio in Atlanta; Eileen Slora, Executive Director, Interior Design for Fairmont Hotels and Resorts; Linda Sorrento, Senior Director of Education, USGBC; and Annette K. Stelmack, founder of Inspirit-llc and a ‘green design guru.’

Last date for entries is Aug 31, 2009, and the judging will be completed by Oct 1, 2009. You can download the application form here, and these are the FAQs for the competition.