However, there are some very real concerns about starting or participating in a YTB business. In this article, we will go through and give an unbiased review of the pros and cons of doing a YTB business, and see if YTB is a great business opportunity…or a great scam.

YTB – The Good

YTB was founded by J. Lloyed tomer, Scott Tomer, and J. Kim Sorensen in 2001. Since then they have grown from scratch to a 122,000 sq. ft. headquarters in Wood River, IL, with over 180 employees.

Their flagship is discount travel services, and actually offer a very generous compensation plan that pays back their distributors (called “Referring Travel Agents”) up to 60% of all travel booked on their websites. YTB is a network marketing business, and also allows representatives to build a downline and make money off their distribution channel.

Your Travel Biz is also a publicly traded company, which means that there is a level of scrutiny and additional responsibility that YTB has to their shareholders. This provides a bit more security that a company is not hiding financial information or is upside down in debt.

YTB – The Bad

The first flag about starting a YTB business is that you are immediately in competition against some of the most powerful internet companies in the world. Companies like Expedia, Orbitz, Hotwire, and Travelocity, just to name a few. This is not a bad thing in of itself – it simply shows that there is money to be made in marketing travel. The disadvantage is that when marketing on the Internet, RTA’s are told to use the YTB company-replicated website, which blends in with every other RTA website.

The RTA might be able to drive traffic to the site, but the site itself contains information on the income opportunity, the company, and many other things than simply saving money on travel. Because the website looks like every other YTB website, the distributor does not get positioned in any way, which leads to low conversion and performance on the website.

YTB – The Ugly

The truly painful thing about starting or growing a YTB business is their marketing plan. Like many network marketing companies, YTB advocates that you chase your “warm market”, friends and family. They teach their distributors to hand out business cards, flyers, and to hand out their magazine to all potential prospects. They also advocate the use of “3-way calling”, which simply means that instead of closing your own deals with your clients, you are encouraged to have your upline do it for you. This technique positions the RTA as a gopher for their upline, and diminishes their credibility as a business leader.

Growing a YTB business can be a great opportunity. They appear to have a good product, but there are plenty of companies that have great products, and many people that market great products never make a dime. There are also plenty of terrible products that generate millions of dollars in revenue (anyone remember the pet rock?) The difference is the marketer, and their ability to target their market effectively.

In closing, I would say that starting and developing a YTB business is lucrative if you know how to effectively use good marketing tools and techniques. It is not a scam, but like any business, success will be determined by the skill-set of the marketer. YTB is definitely not a lottery ticket or a stock option – meaning, you do not just buy in and wait for a payout.

If someone does not have the first clue on how to market effectively, then I would suggest they either learn how to be an effective marketer, or else just use the travel service to save some money on your next trip.