Headquarter Happenings: Nexion Celebrates 30 Years

With some 725 travel advisors, supplier partners, and staff in attendance, Nexion celebrated 30 years in business at this year’s CoNexion conference at Universal Orlando – its largest conference ever.

The conference provided its usual mix of enthusiasm and excitement, but layered in elements of contemplative, and, at times, somber reflection.

“What started as a bold new model during a time of disruption has grown into a vibrant, thriving network of entrepreneurs, innovators, and travel professionals,” Jackie Friedman, president of Nexion Travel told the audience during her keynote on Day Two of the conference.

Her use of the word disruption was not unintentional. Nexion was founded in 1995 in the midst of airlines capping commissions not as a Host agency, but as a technology solution that allowed advisors to access four GDS systems via a single platform from anywhere so long as they had an Internet connection.

Rather quickly, Nexion grew from just an air booking technology solution to a network of advisors booking much more than air. (Which first caught the attention of Sabre in 2003 and then Travel Leaders Group, now Internova, in 2010.)

“This is not just a milestone. It’s a testament to the strength of our industry, to the power of partnerships, and the belief that we’re always stronger together,” Friedman said.

Tribute to Robbi Hamida

In addition to looking backwards, not only Nexion’s past but also the history of the travel agency industry itself, from the 1980s through today, Friedman and emcee Martin Mussey, business development and education manager at Nexion, paid tribute to Robbi Jumaa Hamida, the former senior vice president of agency operations, who passed away this past July.

“As we celebrate, we also pause to remember someone who meant the world to us, our dear friend and colleague Robbi Hamida,” Friedman said. “This event, CoNexion, was one of his favorite times of year. He loved the energy, the connections, the joy, and most of all, the people. Today, his spirit is woven into everything that we do. His legacy lives on in this community that he helped build.”

This year’s fundraiser for the Family Bonds Foundation, an annual occurrence at both the CoNexion and Travel Leaders EDGE conferences, was dedicated to Hamida, with part of the proceeds from an auction of his colorful conference suits going to his preferred charity.

Incoming Technology & Operations Executive

In a sit-down with Friedman, she told TMR that Hamida’s exact position will not be replicated and instead will be replaced by a hybrid technology/business operations vice president who will be focused on moving the business forward with processes and technology.

“It gives us the opportunity to have a position that is focused on the future, as well as providing operational leadership to the teams… That will result in some more exciting announcements next year as we move our roadmap forward.”

The new vice president will also serve as an “advocate” with Internova.

“By having someone that’s on the Nexion team that really, truly understands what our opportunities are, where we want to automate more processes, and really drive that and help justify the ROI on some of these projects so that we can go to the Internova technology team and get these projects funded.”

The name of the new executive will be announced later this month.

Network Growth

That this year’s CoNexion conference is its biggest ever is no surprise, given the size of the network itself is the largest it’s ever been, standing at 6,363 advisors as of the end of August. In just the first eight months, Nexion added 849 new advisors – that’s about 150 more advisors than there where when Sabre acquired Nexion in 2003, putting Friedman in charge.

As of the end of August, Nexion’s membership stands at 4% higher than the same time last year and Friedman said she expects that to go up as they add more members over the last few months of this year. (The company did an early-year culling, removing advisors who were no longer interested in being an active part of Nexion, resulting in a lower net gain percentage than the number of new entrants would suggest.)

Friedman added that 70% of advisors brought into the network are either new to the industry or have a little experience.

“We believe that it’s so important for us to do our part in bringing in new talent to the industry,” Friedman said during a press briefing. “If we just bring people that are already selling for someone else – we’ll take it – but we’re not really growing the industry by doing that.”

Additionally, the average age of these new advisors has been trending downwards since the pandemic. Nexion’s Young Professionals group, for advisors 45 or younger, has also continued to grow and now stands at about 60 members. (Not all Nexion advisors who are 45 or younger choose to join the group.)

“Every year that group gets bigger and bigger,” Friedman said.

Also up this year is the Host agency’s Circle of Excellence, which is reserved for Nexion’s highest performing advisors (in terms of preferred partner sales). This year, 371 advisors made it into the Circle of Excellence, marking the second year in a row that the number of winners set a record. Thirty advisors were named MillionAirs. There were eight double winners (achieving both Circle of Excellence and MillionAir status).

New Marketing Products

During the conference, Nexion’s senior director of marketing, Mai Da Pra, provided an overview of new marketing products, most of which were additions made to products first announced last year.

First and foremost are bundled package options in the network’s Marketing Lab, which launched last year a creative request platform for assets like a business logos or customized mailers. The demand for the system went beyond what was anticipated. In response, Nexion has launched bundled packages with options such as business starter or consumer event, each including a number of creative assets that are appropriate for the package.

For instance, the consumer event package includes creative design for a flyer or postcard, event invitation, and pullup banner, while the social media kit includes things like a custom Instagram carousel, personalized Instagram reel templates, and profile and cover images.

The turn around is between two to three weeks and the prices are below what advisors would pay if they hired a designer on their own.

Also launched last year is the Social Media Toolkit, a free tool that helps advisors fill out their social media schedules with pre-designed destination and travel trend-related content that advisors can caption as they see fit. New this year is supplier-related content, which the suppliers can sign up for and pay Nexion to be part of.

“Now we have a mix of partner social media toolkits and destination and travel trend toolkits,” Da Pra said.

Also announced were next year’s lineup of educational programs, which includes an all-new multi-day event exclusively for Nexion’s Canadian advisors.

CANex will be held in Toronto April 27-28, 2026. Attendance is expected to be somewhere around 100 advisors.

“We think its important to give them an opportunity to come together for a multi-day event… just for Canadian advisors,” Friedman told TMR.

The network is also moving forward with its annual Cruise Sales Summit, which launched this year in Port Canaveral to great success. Next year’s will be in Vancouver in May and will include a pre-summit opportunity to take a Princess cruise from California to Vancouver.

Redesigned and New

Also new this year is Nexion’s recently redesigned and relaunched Nexion University, of which director of educational programs Rich Ferrucci said, “the difference is night and day… it’s now easier than ever to find exactly what you need when you need it.”

And for U.S. advisors only, the line has released a read-only Unclaimed Commissions spreadsheet, with lost, missing, or forgotten reservations, available directly on the MyNexion portal.