Dear Joystar Stakeholder:
Last Tuesday evening, I tipped my hat to Royal Caribbean management as I read their email announcing they were sending termination letters to travel industry “card-mills”. After all, it was about time suppliers took a stand on behalf of real travel agents.
Imagine my shock and dismay the following morning when our President, Larry Fishkin (a 35 year cruise industry veteran and former Advisory Board member of Royal Caribbean) informed me Joystar was the recipient of “the card-mill letter”. RCCL, Celebrity, and Azumara informed us they “were terminating their relationship with Joystar without cause.”
How in the world could any person in the travel industry label Joystar a card-mill? Even our most outspoken rivals in the host agency space know Joystar is anything but a card-mill.
Surely, this was a horrible misunderstanding. Someone or some group of very sinister people had obviously fed Royal Caribbean inaccurate information causing them to react this way and label Joystar and its professional travel agent network a “card-mill”.
“Not to worry,” I said to a handful of our top agents and Enterprise members whom had caught wind of the letter. “We have called RCI and they have agreed to meet with us to clear up the misunderstanding.”
Again, this was a misunderstanding and Royal Caribbean had their hearts in the right place so I wasn’t ready to cry foul.
“One meeting and this will be straightened out and everyone can get back to the business of selling travel,” I said.
Yesterday morning Larry Fishkin, our President, Stewart Chiron, our past President and I met with middle management of RCI with every intention to resolve the mistake.
It took about three minutes for us to learn that RCI had absolutely zero intention to listen to our side of the story or to ask questions we could answer to clear up the matter.
When Mr. Fishkin asked what led Royal Caribbean to this decision,
we were told they did not have any particular concern they could identify, that we have never done anything to harm their brands, or hurt them financially, but they were terminating the relationship anyway.
We were being terminated “without cause”.
When we asked for clarification, we were told by Lisa Bauer, SVP of RCCL that she has decided to "broaden the definition of what a card mill is" and considers Joystar and our Enterprise members to be one. She also uttered the words "Multi-level" although I'm not sure why.
We told her we agreed with her broadened term (to include recruiting consumers to “save money on their own travel” and “travel like an agent”).
We stated we did not practice this recruitment strategy and that for the three years we have been a host agency, we have concentrated on recruiting, training, and supporting experienced agents and we could prove it.
We asked for specific examples of what her reasons were behind labeling us a card-mill. We asked her for any and all questions and or concerns they had about each and every way we do business and offered to open up our entire company to their staff for examination.
We pledged that if they saw anything they didn't like, we would work together for a resolution.
We pleaded on behalf of the over 500 hardworking Joystar travel professionals who booked close to $10 million on RCI brands this year, our 46 employees and their families, and over 1000 shareholders who have provided the millions of dollars of capital to build the best host agency in the travel industry to please, at the very least, delay their decision until we have had more time to address each and every one of their concerns.
Assuming they could or were willing to provide us with any.
Ms. Bauer responded by saying she knew her letter would "upset the few real travel agents at Joystar" and that she wasn’t concerned about the rest.
The few real travel agents at Joystar? How do you respond to a statement like this?
Without any guidance or input from Ms. Bauer, we attempted to explain our Enterprise program because we believed this may be at the heart of the misunderstanding. We offered to show her the background and experience levels and how many agents each one of our 96 host agency partners worked with.
We explained that many Enterprise members brought their own agents from preexisting agency and host relationships and that we also assigned all new agents to one of our Enterprise members as a value –add and also to ensure the success of the new agent.
“No one is allowed to enter the industry through Joystar without a mentor,” I said.
They said they were unwilling to look at any of our records and turned down our offer to "open up the books". They said they “had no desire to look at any more information.”
In our opinion, this has nothing to do with Joystar being a card-mill. We obviously are not and have never been a card-mill.
As soon as we find the real reason Ms. Bauer terminated our relationship (without cause and with no prior warning, and with no explanation), may we begin to repair this horrible mistake and injustice.
That is our singular goal at this time. Fix the mistake and move on.
As you all know, we are on very high ground in this matter. We have the support from our industry associations including ASTA and OSSN. Two respected industry organizations of which Joystar would not be a member if we were what Ms. Bauer stated we are in her broadened definition.
I will endeavor to resolve this “Royal Mistake” with every means available to the Corporation on behalf of our valued travel agents, employees, and shareholders.
I will also endeavor on behalf of every home-based travel agent and host agency in the travel industry so that they do not fall prey to this type of behavior by a supposed partner to all in the travel industry.
Very Truly Yours,
Bill Alverson
William M. Alverson
Chairman and CEO
Travelstar, Inc.
Joystar.com
Travelstar.com
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