Headquarter Happenings: Hurricane Francine Can’t Damper Spirits at CoNexion 2024

Rainy days and an impending hurricane couldn’t dampen the energy at this year’s CoNexion conference, held in New Orleans earlier this week. Only a small number of the record-setting 525 advisors in attendance chose to leave early. Most opted to stick around and take advantage of three full days of general sessions, hot seats with supplier execs, panels, workshops, and supplier round robins.

The positive energy mirrored the results of a Nexion Travel Group survey, released during the conference, showing a high level of satisfaction among Nexion advisors with their career choice and strong confidence in the outlook for the industry.

Of those surveyed (U.S.-based Nexion advisors only), nearly 75% are satisfied or very satisfied with their career as a travel advisor, 88% would recommend a job as a travel advisor to others, and 83% said they are optimistic or very optimistic about the future of the industry.

A quarter of respondents said they are making more money than they expected as a travel advisor, with 19% reporting more than $100,000 in revenue annually, including total commissions and fees.

“We have more award winners this year than ever before. More people growing their business,” Jackie Friedman, president of Nexion Travel Group, said at a small press conference on day one of the show.

For 2024, 334 members (individual advisors, not agencies) achieved Circle of Excellence membership, a number Robbi Jumaa Hamida, senior vice president at Nexion, called “insane.” Thirty-two advisors earned MillionAir status, and six managed to earn both awards.

(Advisors must earn $55,000 in preferred supplier commission [cruise, tours, cars, and insurance] to get into the Circle of Excellence, and $1 million in air sales to be a MillionAir member.)

In fact, with 28% of the 525 advisors in attendance at CoNexion winners of either a Circle of Excellence or MillionAir award, Nexion had to work with an events management company and the local fire department to build a stage large enough (and safe enough) to hold all of the winners in one go.

The success of so many advisors is reflected in Nexion’s overall numbers, as well. Total annual sales for U.S.-based Nexion members last year was about $780 million and business is still looking good for this year and next.

“The numbers are definitely up,” Friedman said during the press conference. “Last year was a huge year for us. Our sales are up in most areas. Fun and sun is slightly down. Cruise is definitely up. Are the percentages as high as the year before? No, because last year was a huge year in terms of growth percentages.”

New and upcoming

As usual, Nexion executives shared a handful of newly debuted and up-and-coming programs, resources, and more during this year’s CoNexion.

Hamida announced a complete revamp of the MyNexion portal, which will bring a cleaner interface and easier, more intuitive navigation. The newly designed portal is expected to launch later this year.

Also going live later this year, Hamida said, will be Nexion’s move to the new Internova SNAP air booking tool, first announced at Travel Leaders Network’s EDGE conference this summer. The tool moves advisors off of the old GDS-style interface to a modern, easy-to-understand system that Hamida referred to as “Amazon-level.”

Heather Kindred, CTIE, vice president of business development and industry relations, revealed an all-new Cruise Sales Summit that will take place in the spring of 2025.

The event, which will be held in Port Canaveral “is aimed at the 50% of advisors that aren’t selling cruises, or aren’t selling very much of it, or don’t feel confident in it,” Kindred said.

Up to 35 advisors will be selected to attend, where they will get to learn from cruise and land partners (insurance, transportation, hotel), as well as do ship and hotel inspections.

Executives also shared details of previously announced new marketing programs at the day one press conference.

The Marketing Expert Program and Marketing Lab are new programs that advisors can take advantage of to learn how to be a better marketer and get help with the design of marketing assets, respectively.

“Something they [advisors] struggle with when it comes to all the offerings they have in the marketing space is the fact that they don’t have the time to get up to speed with training and setting up… there is so much and sometimes it’s overwhelming,” said Mai Da Pra, senior director of marketing at Nexion.

Launched this past June, the Marketing Expert program, which is capped at 20 advisors at a time, requires advisors to work one-on-one with Nexion’s marketing team to go through a checklist in order to receive a Marketing Expert designation. Advisors have four to six months to complete the program, during which they’ll go through regularly scheduled, personalized progress check-ins and hands-on training (as needed).

The program is minimally priced at $99, “just enough to have skin in the game,” Friedman said. There’s already a waiting list for the next group.

The Marketing Lab is a new creative service platform that allows members to make up to 20 requests per month, for the design and creation of a wide range of marketing materials such as business cards, logos, customized mailers, consumer event flyers, and more. The turnaround for each request is about three weeks, Da Pra said. There is a fee for each request, but it’s less than what advisors would pay if they hired an outside vendor.

Advisors inspiring advisors

Returning as part of the general session program were six of Nexion’s signature “NexTalks,” short presentations given by advisors on some aspect of their business that others can learn from.

Brandi Vincent of Principal Travel spoke about the importance of finding the joy in serving clients, telling the audience she became so focused on growing her business that she forgot what the business was about.

“By focusing on creating joyful experiences for my clients I found the driving force and fuel behind my business. My approach not only made my customers happier but also built strong relationships and it brought back repeat business through word-of-mouth referrals,” she said.

She added that finding joy in her business and for her clients has been key to preventing burnout.

Vincent offered several insights into how she brings joy to her clients’ travel planning including focusing on understanding the client’s needs at a deep level; personalizing every interaction and touchpoint by sending welcome notes, small gifts, and customized travel documents; and creating a community of clients aided by local hosted events, group journeys, and an active social media group.

Michelle Gaudet of Inspired Travel Adventures spoke about the rewards of escorted group travel, while Bridget Edwards of Bridget Talks Travel noted the importance of getting involved in ASTA at the chapter level.

Harry McKenzie of HM Travel Design talked about how he uses AI to streamline operations, minimize repetitive tasks, and enhance client services. Specifically, he uses AI to write most of his social media posts, build a photo shot list (with captions) for when he’s traveling, create a social media calendar he can follow, write emails (especially sensitive emails with difficult or upset clients), and for personal itinerary planning and in-destination recommendations for places he’s not an expert in.

Matt Walker of Maidstone Travel explained how he’s gone from seeing himself as a travel agency that does marketing, to a marketing agency that sells travel. He talked about the importance of developing your niche and then creating marketing funnels that can lead complete strangers into paying clients.

As just one example of how to get strangers into your funnel, he suggested participating in school fairs and handing out hand-made business cards with QR codes leading to an article written specifically for other parents. You can use AI to help you write the article, something like “5 Things to Know About Spring Break Travel.” The article should have an email capture form, which feeds into your funnel.

Walker said he’s more than doubled his income since he began using marketing funnels in 2021.

Internova insights

On day two, a panel of Internova Travel Group executives, along with Friedman and Roger Block, president of Travel Leaders Network, of which Nexion is a member, explained the intricate relationship between the three entities, as well as the Internova programs that Nexion members can benefit from.

In simple terms, Internova is a holding company with three verticals, each one dedicated to serving a different type of client.

One is dedicated to travel management companies, which is where “we service the traveler directly,” said J.D. O’Hara, CEO of Internova. This first vertical is broken down into two categories: corporate travel, essentially composed of the Altour brand, and a leisure travel business, mostly composed of “a lot of small cruise businesses that we’ve bought over the years that we’re putting under one umbrella,” he said.

The second vertical is dedicated to serving travel agencies. The Travel Leisure Network consortium fits into this vertical.

The third vertical serves the travel advisor directly, and that’s where Nexion fits in, along with the Global Travel Collection (formerly Protravel and Tzell).

Across all three verticals, Internova has about 100,000 travel advisors booking travel under its umbrella and brings in $25 billion in sales annually.

During the panel, each of the Internova representatives also talked about the programs that Nexion members have access to including a brand-new SNAP air tool (first introduced at this year’s Travel Leaders Network EDGE conference this past June) and a resuscitated DMC program that currently offers 180 vetted in-country partners.