I first heard of World Ventures business opportunity from a friend who thought it was a good fit for me as I love traveling. That was just a few years ago, before I started blogging. Recently, that name came up to me again and this time I decided to do a bit of digging to see if it’s something valid that I would recommend to my readers. If you’re wondering about the same thing, read on.
What Is World Ventures
WorldVentures is a membership club, established in 2005, to provide exclusive holiday vacation deals and income opportunity for people who loves to travel. Upon visiting their home page, the first sight that you’ll see is flashes of exotic destinations and luxurious trips that makes you want to be there. Watch this mesmerizing promo-video and you’ll know what I mean.
The ‘good news’ here is, you can be part of this experience by joining the company’s growing network, which is boasted to consist of more than 100K representatives worldwide.
What Is Inside The Opportunity
The whole idea behind World Ventures partnership is to sell their travel membership packages directly to consumers. In order to do so, you need to become a representative first. For $99.95 USD (initial payment) and a monthly fee of $10.99, you’ll get access to the business system (non-commission product) that comes with a personalized website, online training and marketing tools.
So let’s say you are planning to commit to this for a year, you can expect to invest about $232, which isn’t that pricey when compared to other direct selling companies.
But the challenge lies in promoting their picture-perfect product. Will the general public buy the hype? Let me reveal some of these cold hard facts.
#1 (Not) An All Inclusive Package
Who doesn’t like to travel in luxury, right? 5 star accommodation, premium meals, VIP access and etc. In order to enjoy these privileges, one need to sign up for either one of these packages;
- Dream Trips Platinum – $399.98 (initial payment) + $99.99/month
- Dream Trips Gold – $249.98 (initial payment) + $54.99/month
Now, if you do the math, it’s not hard to see that one could easily spend close to 1K per year just for the membership alone. That’s expensive! While the packages qualify you for many discounts, it DOESN’T cover air flight tickets, full accommodation and ground travel plans, where other big spending will incur.
So, if you are planning to head to some exotic destinations with WorldVentures, you better be prepared to top up your budget.
Honestly, if you do your due diligence, you can travel luxuriously even without binding to any (paid) membership program. Travel agencies, airline miles points and credit card privileges – all these are alternative ways that can earn you (sometimes free) trips as well.
Just so you know, WorldVentures isn’t the first company to invent vacation packages and certainly won’t be the last. There are always other options for people to choose.
#2 Competitive Travel Trends
As I am writing this article by the beach in Gold Coast, Australia, I couldn’t help feeling fortunate about coming to this trip. I did my research and only had to pay (flight + hotel) about $1500 for a 10-day stay in a 4 star hotel. Not bad, right?
Well, I am very sure that the majority of tourists who come to enjoy the sunny winter here are just like me – budget travelers, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
The truth is, the internet has become our strongest ally when it comes to finding good travel deals – maximize the enjoyment without having to pay sky-rocket prices for air flight and accommodation. Unfortunately, since WorldVentures packages are so exclusive, people don’t usually see them online.
Just to prove to you that I am not making things up, here’s the comparison between ‘budget travel‘ versus ‘luxury travel‘. It’s quite clear which is more popular, right?
#3 Complicated Compensation Plan
Now let’s talk business. No two direct selling company’s compensation plan are the same. Dottera has its own, Tupperware has theirs and so does WorldVentures. The multiple tiers earning system isn’t always easy to understand and a lot of mental acrobats are involved, just trying to make sense of them.
Once you get hold of the concept yourself, you still have to develop the art of explaining it to other people that you wish to recruit. Of course, one may argue that this skill can always be learned, but anything that’s complicated will only create an additional barrier.
When people take a long time to digest a certain information, they will take equally as long to commit to a plan. This isn’t really the company’s fault, but it’s just the way most MLM business model operates.
Maybe that’s why more than 70% of WorldVentures representatives fail to earn commissions during their first year. In fact, it’s not uncommon at all for most of them to drop out of the company after that.
#4 Poor Online Presence
Honestly, I don’t see a lot of recruiter’s websites around and whenever I did, they look something like this.
Brief, not informative and purely out there just to promote their products, isn’t it? As someone who’s been doing online marketing for a while, I can tell you that ‘thin website’ such as this one will never make it to the first page of Google, naturally anyway. The only reason why I found it in the first place was because this one is published as an advertisement, which in most cases, usually occupy the top spot.
This makes me suspect that the company doesn’t really emphasize on search engine optimization. For example, when someone search for the term “Luxury Travel Around The World“, none of the World Ventures sites can be found on the first page of Google.
In order to appear in this result, one has to invest in paid advertising which can be a risky process if you have no experience in online marketing.
Like most MLM companies, this organization also has got its fair share of fraud, illegal and scam labels smack to its brand. I don’t have to reiterate what’s been widely published online, but if you do decide to partner with this company anyway, remember that its tarnished reputation may negatively affect your marketing effort.
Is WorldVentures Worth Joining?
Let me recap what I’ve just explained.
- Offering people pricey travel plans when they can find better deals online or close to home, is not going to make you a lot of profit.
- Most vacationers are budget travelers. You may have more conversion concentrating on this niche.
- Compensation plans are complicated, no matter how you twist and turn things around.
- Want to sell or recruit online? I don’t think World Ventures know a lot about internet marketing.
- The brand has been associated with a lot of bad business practice. Proceed with caution.
So, in conclusion, I wouldn’t recommend getting involved with World Ventures as I could foresee that you’d be wasting a lot of time, promoting something that’s dying in popularity. There are better (legitimate) money making methods in the traveling niche and if you research thoroughly, you can convert better with physical, digital and even property type of products online.
But first, you need to understand a few basics like website creation, niche research and keyword trends. If you are still in the quest, please check out my recommended training platform to see how you can start learning these skills for free.
Have you been involved or offered with the WorldVentures business opportunity? What do you think about it? Please share your experience in the comment below.
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This post of yours reminded me of a bad experience I had with Coastal Vacation travel package. From your account of the World Venture business opportunity, it seems to be that it is far better than Coastal Vacation’s that extols over $5,000 from me within a couple of months, without offering anything in return, except pieces of papers that I had no idea how to use.
It is very important for people to be careful, do a thorough research (which I did not because I trusted the lady that discussed with me, not knowing it was a fraud) before joining all these thousand and one “be your own boss” job opportunities. The World Venture as you disclosed, does not seem to be fraud, but there are better competitors and other options available to those interested in leveraging from the travel business opportunity. Just avoid on what has happened to me.
Hi Cathy! My boyfriend and I do love to travel and a travel business does sound like something that could be interesting. But now that I know that World Ventures is MLM, I am not interested. I’ve been involved in network marketing in the past only to see a lot of people end up getting hurt. You are right. They love to use hype to get people excited to join. Hopefully, your review will make people think twice.
I was approached by someone about this travel plan before. In a way, I am glad that I didn’t join, because a few months later, she also quit from the program.
Honestly, I didn’t find their plans to be beneficial. There are so many discounted offers nowadays that people would gladly hop on, so why limit yourself to just luxurious travel where the audience size is smaller? Thanks to this review, now I know I didn’t missed out anything for not joining.
Hi, Cathy. The people who run this World Ventures business seem to believe that using a stunningly visual video, such as is seen in your review, is all that would be necessary to convince a person to choose an exotic location to spend a vacation; that or else join up in promoting them through an online business. Most scam companies resort to appealing to naive prospects by showing images of fancy cars, homes and vacation destinations, which could belong to the individuals simply by joining the opportunity. Most also are absolute lies!
As you proved in your article, looks can be deceiving. The fact that this company tells a false tale of how inexpensive it would be to start up an affiliate business with them, belies what is the real truth. Besides all of the inherent fallacies of just how difficult it would be to sell a vacation package to anyone with the fact that they would not be all-inclusive, I also question the level of training that this company would provide to members in teaching them the techniques regarding marketing their businesses out to consumers.
Most of these companies, (MLM’s especially) provide very poor educational training and sadly people, (newbies) joining an opportunity with dollar signs dancing inside their heads end up failing miserably. Not learning how to properly market a business is the death knell to many people who otherwise have no clue as to what they’re doing.
I agree with you, especially as you mentioned the number of negative connotations associated with this company as one could do so much better than paying to join World Ventures.
Interesting to read that there are even MLM’s out there that are all about travel. I had never heard about World Ventures before I read your post, but it is not something I would have gone for anyhow.
What is free about traveling if you have to pay everything yourself anyway?
I know of better ways to build a business and as for traveling – I have my share of experience when traveling with an agency. It is way better to figure out a budget way of getting somewhere, finding a great place for a great price (whether luxury or budget) and having a blast being there.
Nowadays when I travel to a destination of choice, I got my laptop with and can work on my websites from the beach basically. I don’t understand why anyone would go all the lengths of trying to sell something that nobody wants to buy.
I have been in Doterra and Forever Living as for MLM and I never felt that it worked for me. Too much effort to get anywhere in life. Let’s just stay with affiliate marketing.
I actually got to know about World Ventures when someone approached me from Facebook, of all places.
He made the opportunity sound amazing like, who doesn’t like holidays and traveling around the world for free – that kind of stuff. But you make really good points about how it is not the full package and that people are really more into budget travel. I think those who are into luxury travel probably aren’t looking into this kind of package either.
I am glad I didn’t succumb to his offer.
Hi, Cathy and thanks for the honest World Venture vacation deals review. Even though some people may think of it as a business model, it’s still an MLM scheme. At first sight, it seems like a trustworthy company, given their 12 years of establishment, but after searching Google for some main travel keywords, I couldn’t really find World Ventures showing up anywhere.
For me, the compensation plans and their tricky marketing techniques are just a waste of time and money.
Thanks for showing me what World Ventures is all about. Didn’t know that they are MLM though. I do like to travel, but the compensation plan sounds very complicated and I don’t want to be caught on a dodgy program that isn’t really legit. This is one travel program that I wouldn’t be keen to get involved.