Nexion Launches New Educational Series

Nexion, one of the leading North American host travel agencies, is expanding its training offerings for members in 2009, including the launch of two virtual travel success seminar series: the Travel Industry Executive Series and the Target Market Discovery Series. Both series will educate agents as they expand their knowledge about myriad travel industry topics.

“Nexion helps both new sellers and seasoned travel veterans by providing the resources they need to become well educated, successful independent agents who are good for the industry, the consumer, and the supplier,” said Nexion general manager Jackie Friedman. “Our agents’ success is our success, and Nexion’s training and support tools will help our members accelerate their skills, opportunities, performance and cash flow.”

The Travel Industry Executive Series will welcome leading travel industry executives to speak about current industry trends that directly affect travel professionals in an open forum-style webinar. The industry leaders will also offer ideas for best practices to help agents build their businesses and build better relationships with their customers.

Nexion’s next Travel Industry Executive Series takes place April 16, featuring Vicki Freed, senior vice president sales and trade support and services for Royal Caribbean. Freed will focus on creative approaches to increasing bookings, helping agents understand how they can differentiate themselves and spur customers to travel in the midst of a challenging economy. Sessions featuring other industry leaders will be held quarterly.

In the Target Market Discovery Series, Nexion hosts a panel of experts who will focus on popular destinations or a segment of the travel market to assist agents in making informed decisions on placing the right customer in the right destination. The 90-minute calls will feature an hour of moderated questions, followed by an open question-and-answer period.

The panels, moderated by Nexion’s director of agent development Robbi Hamida, will explore a host of vacation options, including: river cruising, Alaska cruising/cruise tours, travel insurance, North America vacations, European travel, luxury market opportunities, family/multi-generational travel, exotics, airlines and consolidators and Asia/Pacific excursions. Each call ends with Nexion agents being able to interact and ask questions.

“We want to make sure that Nexion agents get the best training, knowledge and advice,” said Hamida. “Both the Travel Industry Executive Series and the Target Market Discovery Series will give our agents the vision to succeed and will help them build valuable relationships with our supplier partners.”

Nexion University, another component of Nexion’s education program, will offer members a one-stop shop for interactive and online training modules and scheduled webinars. The program will launch this spring. Through Nexion University, members will be able to track their training and personal development plan using a new learning management system.

In addition to online training, Nexion will hold four high-demand Boot Camps in 2009 as well as an annual conference. Boot Camps are intensive, three-day training sessions geared toward new Nexion agents as well as experienced agents who need a boost and want to make the most out of their Nexion membership.

This year, Nexion is enhancing the boot camp supplier experience by having more concentrated training by line of business, with panel and roundtable discussions by type of supplier. Nexion will have a cruise roundtable on one day, a tour roundtable on another day and conclude with a panel of insurance partners. Nexion’s next Boot Camp is May 12-14. Nexion’s annual conference, CoNexion 2009, will take place October 1-3 in Orange County in southern California.

Visit www.nexion.com.