We're a little worried about ARC, specifically the somewhat anemic statistics recently posted for agency sales.
We are swimming in anecdotal evidence that the travel business is in fairly good shape, but the hard data from the ARC channel does not paint a robust picture.
Total sales for the month of June and the first six months are down from where they were a year ago, as is the number of agency transactions. In fact, June's transaction count fell nearly 4%, to just under 11.4 million, the lowest level for the month of June in seven years.
A $7 billion month is nothing to sneeze at, but we'd feel a lot better about it if those trend lines were pointing a bit more north.