Former Travel Advisor Sentenced to 100 Days in Jail
by Sarah Milner
TICO has added new resources to its Registrant Toolkit.
The Travel Industry Council of Ontario (TICO) has revealed that a former travel advisor is going behind bars.
After being charged by TICO in 2023, Jie Yu (Jenny) Ai and World Travel Inc. have been convicted of a total 11 charges:
World Travel Inc.:
- Four counts of failing to hold money collected from customers for travel services in a trust account;
- Two counts of furnishing false information or documents; and
- Two counts of operating as a travel agent without TICO registration.
Jenny Ai:
- Three counts of being an Officer and Director of a corporation and failing to take reasonable care to prevent the corporation from committing an offence.
Ai was sentenced to 100 days in jail, two-years probation, and restitution payments totalling $32,350. World Travel Inc. received a suspended sentence and a two-year probation.
“The Ontario Court of Justice determined that Jenny Ai, the sole Director, Officer and Supervisor/Manager at World Travel Inc. accepted consumer funds to book airline tickets but used these funds for other purposes. The requested airline tickets were not booked, and the consumers were presented with falsified booking documents,” the regulator said in a release.
World Travel Inc. was formerly a TICO-registered travel agency located in Toronto, Ontario. The agency’s registration was suspended on Nov. 1, 2022, and then revoked following an unsuccessful appeal on Feb. 24, 2023.
The Licence Appeal Tribunal found that Ai had accepted funds for airline tickets but failed to book them, instead providing consumers with falsified documents. Furthermore, “World Travel Inc. failed to properly handle consumers funds held in trust, failed to comply with record-keeping obligations, and did not cooperate with TICO inspectors.”
TICO added further charges to Ai and World Travel Inc. because Ai continued to operate World Travel as a travel seller after its registration was revoked.
In court, Ai was facing fines of up to $50,000 and/or prison terms of up to two years.
