President's Message
Have you ever watched ducks gliding across a pond? On the surface, the birds appear very calm and serene, almost as if they’re moving by magic.

OSSN’s Daily Leads the Pack!
By OSSN President & Founder Gary M. Fee

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In the 2006 survey of home-based agents conducted by OSSN, CLIA, and ModernAgent.com, 27 percent of the respondents said they get most of their daily travel industry news from the OSSN Daily. (Twenty-one percent cited ModernAgent.com’s Travel Pulse, 16 percent said Travel Weekly, and 14 percent said Travel Agent.)

We’re very pleased that this five-days-a-week newsletter benefits so many home-based agents!

My goal in this column is to help OSSN members understand what goes into that membership benefit. Like the ducks on the pond, there’s more to the OSSN Daily than meets the eye!

Don’t confuse the OSSN Daily with other travel agent email newsletters that are basically links to newspaper stories. What we try to do with the Daily is give you a quick early-morning snapshot of the travel news that’s most important to home-based agents. You won’t find a lot of “filler” material in our Daily. Instead, you’ll see short summaries (usually a single paragraph) of what’s happening with airlines, cruise lines, travel packagers, hotels, and other travel movers and shakers.

Each summary article gives you the basics of that travel news story. If the story deals with an OSSN supplier member, we’ll include a hyperlink to the supplier’s Web site. By spending five to 10 minutes with the Daily every morning, you’ll get a quick understanding of what’s going on in travel that day!

Have you ever read other travel email newsletters that were obviously produced by people who’ve never worked in the travel industry? They may be filled with links to Web pages and newspaper stories that don’t deal with the major issues facing home-based agents right now. That’s why we don’t use software, RSS feeds, Web search bots, and similar shortcuts to produce the Daily.

Each issue begins around 10 p.m. the night before with an around-the-world review of business and travel newswires, postings from major news organizations like the Associated Press and Reuters, and releases issued by leading travel companies. That review starts up again at 5 a.m. each weekday morning, followed by the drafting of each summary article and the HTML coding required to prepare the Daily in a format that can be read easily by home-based agents using lots of different computers and lots of different Web connections! (Even something as simple as obtaining permission to use a copyrighted photograph can be a big challenge before 9 a.m.!)

In 2005, OSSN retained John Hawks to take over production of the OSSN Daily. John’s editorial services firm takes each issue of the Daily from start to finish for us. We’re very happy that OSSN’s daily newsletter is overseen by a fellow who’s served as president of the Association of Retail Travel Agents, senior vice president of the National Tour Association, and the editor or managing editor of four different travel magazines.

And, frankly speaking, the OSSN Daily is not cheap. We’re in our third year of working with John’s firm, and the OSSN Daily fees constitute a significant monthly operating expense for our association. Based on the feedback we get each week from OSSN’s members, though, we know that you value getting this travel news summary every morning from folks who know the travel industry!

My recommendation? I’d start the day by reading the OSSN Daily, before heading over to ModernAgent.com to skim the headlines on its home page if you don’t already receive the “Travel Pulse” email. (James Shillinglaw and his team of editors and writers at ModernAgent.com produce what’s really considered today the “newsletter of record” for the whole travel agency community, not just the home-based agents.) Also, I’d bookmark the home pages of Travel Weekly and Travel Agent, to see the headlines posted there. You can consult lots of other sites too, but you should consider making these news sources a daily reading habit.

So, the next time you skim through the OSSN Daily, think about the hours of work that went into its preparation. It’s another example of how OSSN goes the extra mile to help you stay on top and grow your home-based travel business!

(Credit: OSSN)