TPN Chats: Recognition, Next Path, and What’s Coming with Heather Kindred of Nexion Travel Group

In this episode of TPN Chat, Andy Ogg sits down with Heather Kindred of Nexion Travel Group for a warm, wide-ranging conversation about how one of the industry’s most respected host agencies is investing in advisors at every stage of their career.

 

Heather traces her own path from Holland America’s Westours division in Seattle to life as a travel advisor, and finally to the role that lit her up the most — training and developing travel advisors, which she still calls the passion that drives her every day. Nexion’s community of 6,000+ advisors is the direct beneficiary. Learn more about Nexion and read real advisor reviews on FindAHostTravelAgency.com.

 

The conversation dives into two big structural shifts at Nexion this year. First, the business development and education teams have been split into dedicated arms, allowing the launch of Next Path — a 90-day, individualized onboarding program built specifically for advisors who are new to Nexion but bring an existing book of business with them. Second, the recognition program has expanded to include new Summit and Pinnacle of Excellence tiers, plus a Millionaires program for top air sellers, with almost 10% of the community now hitting recognition status.

 

Heather also gives Andy the first look at Nexion’s Business Growth Club — a year-long cohort of 34 high-performing agency owners who kicked things off at Connection and will meet three more times over the next year for masterminding, reflection, and pure “working on the business, not in it” time.

 

On the AI front, Heather is refreshingly honest — she admits she once dismissed AI as “glorified Google” and was “dead wrong.” She previews the technology upgrades coming to Nexion’s advisor platform (with the first launch in November and a full rollout by next spring), including AI-powered search that lets advisors ask questions the way they actually think them. But she’s equally quick to remind everyone that when you really need help, sometimes you just want to talk to a human — and Nexion’s people-first culture isn’t going anywhere.

 

Plus: a look at Nexion’s new Easy Travels podcast (deliberately kept short and snackable), warm words on Jackie’s just-announced retirement, and a full lineup of upcoming events — Group Sales Summit in Cancun, Leap Into Luxury virtual, the application-only Luxury Sales Summit in Santa Fe, and the brand-new Romance Sales Summit in Punta Cana this January. Heather closes with a message every independent advisor needs to hear: get out of your house, get out of your office, and get into the room with other people who do what you do. Isolation is the enemy of growth. Watch the full conversation below, and find the complete transcript underneath.

 

 

 

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Andy Ogg: Welcome to the Travel Professional News Podcast, your essential source for staying ahead in the travel industry. Thank you for joining us today for another TPN Chat. My name is Andy Ogg, and I do some things over here at our family business of the brands TravelProfessionalNews.com, FindAHostTravelAgency.com, and HomeBasedTravelAgent.com. Our family’s been in the business for a long time, and I’ve been enjoying partnering with my parents as well as my beautiful wife — and my kids help out as well. So we are truly a family-run organization. Teamwork makes the dream work. Today I am super excited to chat with Heather Kindred of Nexion Travel Group. How are you today, Heather?

Heather Kindred: I’m amazing, and thank you, Andy, so much for giving me a little bit of a lowdown on your kids and how everybody’s doing these days.   Andy Ogg: Yeah, it’s always fun to have a little chat before we start this thing. The kids are great. All of them are crazy, but they’re growing up so well, and it’s so fun being a dad — even though it’s tiring. It’s one of the biggest joys I’ve had in my life.

Heather Kindred: Absolutely, absolutely. Mine are grown now, so I remember fondly. One of my favorite sayings that me and my wife apply is: the days are long, but the years are short.

Andy Ogg: Because I look at my now 12-year-old girl, and I see her as the same little — well, I don’t see anymore — but I remember her being this little four-year-old thing with a little messy bun attached to my hip. And now she’s almost a teenager. It’s insane.

Heather Kindred: You know, when you say that, I also want to remind you that the childhood is short, but having them as adults — as you know, the relationship you have with your parents is really long and amazing. And the idea that you raise those darling girls into adults that you love to be around, hang out with, maybe work with — that is the dream.

Andy Ogg: It is, it is. Well, Heather, give me a little bit of a rundown — who am I talking to today? Tell the people who listen in to us who you are, what you do, and where you come from.

Heather Kindred: Yeah, thank you so much. Back in the day, I actually started my career at Holland America here in Seattle and worked for a division called Westours, which was then later absorbed into Holland America. Then I became a travel advisor, and that’s where I started my career. I did that for many years until I started training travel advisors, which turned out to be my absolute passion. To this day, I still would completely spend my days working with travel advisors and making them better every single day. It’s a passion of mine.

Andy Ogg: I think we both share that passion. Our business, as you very well know, has been solely focused on empowering, educating, and really helping travel advisors take that next step — whether it’s getting started, dipping their feet in the water, or growing their business from $500,000 to $5 million in sales. All of our websites are really catered to that. And as you know, Tom and Joni have been in this industry for a long time with a lot of prestigious awards and real participation in getting this home-based travel advisor sector to be where it’s at today. Way back when, it’s rumored that maybe my mom and dad started the first host agency unknowingly when the airlines stopped paying commissions. So it’s a really fun thing to know the history of where we are today and where we’re going. As you very well know, we run the three major websites: TravelProfessionalNews.com, which has grown absolutely insane, and some new cool things we’ve added there. FindAHostTravelAgency.com as well — we’ve added a chatbot that we’ve trained so it helps people find what they’re looking for a little bit easier. So for example on FindAHostTravelAgency.com, you can ask, “What consortium is this host with? I’m looking for a host agency that offers leads. I’m looking for a host agency that works for Ensemble, or Signature, or what have you.” It’ll just help drive those answers a little quicker to get them where they need to be faster.

Heather Kindred: Travel Leaders.

Andy Ogg: Travel Leaders, there you go. Travel Leaders is another great one. Yeah, so we’ve been busy. And you know, the AI thing is real. The AI technology is real, and we’ve been really pushing agents — because, I’m sure you’ve heard it as well, Heather, it’s a little scary. It’s a little unknowing what it can do in the future. We kind of know what it’s doing now, and it’s already pretty intense. What can it do in two years? I know we’ve heard this question a bunch: is a travel advisor going to be needed in the future?

Heather Kindred: Oh — if you’re asking me that question, no.

Andy Ogg: I’m saying we hear that question, and our answer is absolutely. What we’ve been really trying to get agents to do is focus on implementing AI to help run their business better — whether it’s lead capturing, whether it’s responding, whether it’s follow-ups. Automating these things so they have an extra two hours in the day to work on the next client or find the next client.

Heather Kindred: Yeah, I agree. I think that the travel advisor is not going away. I think AI is great for doing research — with a grain of salt for some of the inconsistencies that come out. Always check that with the professional. I think travel advisors are still going to be the ones that humans should go to to talk to humans about their travel. I like AI for organizing things, maybe a spreadsheet or two, but I think most of my research is going to go a little deeper than that.

Andy Ogg: It is. And I think there’s two sides to every coin. I’m kind of leaning with you — I’m not a huge user of artificial intelligence, but I can’t say it’s not implemented into our business, and it has streamlined a lot of it. I know we’re talking to more travel advisors now than we ever have. So it’s a really exciting time if you can harness it and learn it and grow with it instead of fighting it.

Heather Kindred: Because — I’ve to be honest — I don’t like it very much. I fought it tooth and nail. Three years ago my dad started talking about it, and I was like, “That’s not real. That’s not going to happen. It’s just a glorified Google.” No, I was wrong. I was dead wrong on that one.

Andy Ogg: It could still be a glorified Google for some, I think. So tell me — Nexion’s been doing some things lately. I’ve been seeing PRs come through. We publish those PRs to all of our sites, promote them for you. What’s been going on and what’s new?

Heather Kindred: Well, one of the things that I’m very proud of this year is we expanded our business development and education team into two teams, which comprises of education and events in one section and business development in another. That allowed us to add a few more people to the team. We’ve done a really good job with new-to-the-industry — we’ve had three different new-to-the-industry training programs, including a Veterans in Travel program which has been in our portfolio since 2019. The opportunity we saw this past year was to really take the time and energy and investment in bringing on some new people onto the team that can work with new-to-Nexion, but not new-to-the-travel-industry. So when you have your own book of business, whether you come from another agency or you come from another host that maybe hasn’t been the right fit for you, we can bring you on and you can opt into one of the new Nexion programs. We’ve named that program Next Path. It is 90 days of individualized professional development, help with accessing their tools — our tools, the ones that will work for them. We also want to focus on building the business where they want it to go. So you mentioned earlier watching people go from, you know, $500,000 to — I can’t remember the giant number on the other end you said. I think that every advisor that comes into the industry as an independent has different goals. Some of them are driven by financials. They want to make as much money as possible and have multiple agents in their agency and really be powerhouses. And we want to support that advisor. Then there’s the advisor that wants to do a handful of small groups or large groups a year. We want to support that advisor. There’s the advisor that wants to do this as a side gig. I don’t want to say “side gig” in a negative way, but side gig in a positive way. I’ve known many advisors who have successful careers in other industries, or they are parents that are taking care of kids or homeschooling, but they still want a career and an income. So the idea of helping a travel advisor — an independent travel agency owner — get to wherever they want to achieve, the goals they want, not comparing them to other people. That’s really the focus around this new business development team: addressing those advisors that know about travel, know about selling travel, but need a little bit of help getting where they want to go.

Andy Ogg: I think that’s really cool. Correct me if I’m wrong — I think it’s not “side gig” anymore. It’s “side hustle” now, I believe.

Heather Kindred: I believe that’s what it is. So it’s a side hustle. Of course.

Andy Ogg: It’s like an extra hustle. Because sometimes at the end of the day, some people still have energy, apparently.

Heather Kindred: Yeah, exactly.

Andy Ogg: That’s really good. So have you seen an increase in new agents signing up that are fitting into those different bubbles — where they might not find a host that is so open to them because they maybe aren’t doing it full time, or maybe they only are doing that one big group a year?

Heather Kindred: Yes, I think so. There are other agencies in the market that are more niche down. They might have a requirement that you come in with a book of business, or a requirement that you can only book a certain amount of personal travel versus travel to outside clients. There are some restrictions around that. We don’t really have those restrictions. What we do have at Nexion that’s a little bit of a unique situation — but also can be a barrier — is if you are new to the travel industry, you have to have some kind of formalized training, whether that is Travel Leaders of Tomorrow, which is a Travel Leaders / Internova program, or the Travel Institute. Something formal that shows us that you know the basics of working in the travel industry. There’s a lot of innuendos around travel that even a very seasoned traveler might not know. If you are a traveler who’s never traveled with an infant, you might not know that you have to pay if you’re taking your infant on an international flight. Minimum connect time, some sort of those weird nuances of the travel industry that you can’t learn through osmosis.

Andy Ogg: Yeah, that makes tons of sense. That’s really exciting. That’s very cool. I think it’s a great new offering to be able to just have a very wide variety of agents that are working with you, because you get to learn more from each of them. And I’m sure you’ve been doing a lot of that. How has Nexion — obviously you’ve got something for the new agents — tell me about what’s been going on in terms of your high-performing agents, your agents that have been with you for a while that are continuing to see success, and what you’re doing to continue their education and their training.

Heather Kindred: Oh, great question, and I’m super excited to talk about that. One of the things that we did this year is we expanded our recognition program. Right now we’re at about almost 10% of our membership base. So we have a little over 6,000 travel advisors in our community, and this year we hit almost 600 — so almost 10% — hit some kind of recognition tier. We used to have a sort of gateway tier that started at $35,000 in commissions paid to you in 12 months, and then it went to I think it was $55,000 for the top tier. Well, we added two more tiers. That’s how awesome some of these folks are doing. So we now have the Summit of Excellence. We have Gateway to Excellence, Circle of Excellence, Summit of Excellence, Pinnacle of Excellence — we now have all those different tiers. In addition to that, Nexion has an air department. And we also recognize people who are in the top tier of the air sellers for the organization. So if you’re selling a million dollars or more in air, you’re a part of the Millionaires recognition program. And then there’s a gateway. It’s pretty exciting. I think that was one of my big goals a few years ago — if we can get 10% of our community achieving that level of sales, I think we’ve done a good job. That number, the higher that number is, the better for most people. One of the other things that we introduced for our high-performing advisors this year — and agency owners — is something called the Business Growth Club. This is a year-long cohort. We have a new staff member who is leading that cohort. This group will meet four times a year. It kicked off this last month at Connection, where I think it was 34 very high-performing advisors and agency owners met in a room at Connection. Then they’ll meet three additional times in the next year, and we’ll start a new cohort each year. This group will get together and they’ll have the opportunity to share ideas, to do some think tanks or mastermind-type breakouts. We’ll have presentations to them. They do a lot of reflection on where they’ve been and how they got to where they were, and what they want to change going forward. Because sometimes you’re so busy working in your business, you don’t have time to work on your business. That’s sort of addressing that predicament that a lot of very successful agency owners are in.

Andy Ogg: It’s very true. It’s hard to continue growing when you get so busy just running it, right?

Heather Kindred: Yes.

Andy Ogg: You probably know exactly what I’m talking about.

Heather Kindred: Oh, over the years, trust me.

Andy Ogg: Yeah, I’ve been there countless times. Sometimes find myself there every day. I chose to wash our couch cushions regretfully yesterday afternoon. Don’t do that. Just don’t do it. Not enjoyable, not fun. I feel like I’m covered with fiberglass still. Not even sure where fiberglass came from, but yeah — sometimes it’s just not a good choice.

Heather Kindred: No.

Andy Ogg: That’s really cool to hear. And you know, Connection just happened and we were not able to make it — we had some family stuff going on.

Heather Kindred: I’m so sorry about that.

Andy Ogg: We were there in spirit. I know Joni’s working on something right now already, so I know there’s something cool coming out from us which should go live on TravelProfessionalNews.com in the coming weeks. We’re getting close to it. But that’s really exciting. And one of the things that I know agents have — and it’s a hot topic, we have had some discussions on this TPN Chat about the word AI — has Nexion implemented, offered, or is providing any tools for their agents at this time?

Heather Kindred: You were asking the education person an IT question, but —

Andy Ogg: Well, I’m just curious.

Heather Kindred: Okay, all right. I’m going to make a joke because Laura was actually supposed to be doing this interview with you. So Laura Bjorn is my counterpart. She does the operations and technology side for Nexion, and we brought her on a year ago — a year ago this week, if I recall. One of her strengths is technology, and she is bringing Nexion into this century with our technology imminently. So we should have the first piece of it launching in November, and then next spring will be hopefully the culmination of our upgrades. AI is 100% a piece of that. We had an intranet for our advisors where they could go in, and there was the education pieces, all of the business information they could need, where they would track or input bookings for commission tracking and whatnot. One of the things we used to get feedback on is: why don’t we work like Google? So if we’d open up the intranet and they would want to type in “how to XYZ” — we didn’t have that functionality. You could search for a keyword and that would take you to something, but we’re so programmed to form full sentences. I think AI is also teaching us to form not just full sentences but thoughtful sentences and thoughtful questions, so that we get the right answers. And that is coming, and we’re super excited about that. I think you’re going to see Nexion a year from now at Connection when we announce a very different agency in terms of technology. One of the things that I do want to say, though — while technology is going to evolve and improve in the next year, and I’m saying a year even though we have incremental launches happening — the people at Nexion are still our sweet spot. And the team that we have here is so passionate about helping people that, let’s not forget, sometimes you just want to talk to a human. And we still have a very robust, well-trained, compassionate member services team. We have an entire air department that supports our air bookings. Over and over and over, we get the feedback from our members how incredible they are to work with, how helpful they’ve been, and how supportive they’ve been. So even though AI is coming and technology is coming, we have always had the best people and the best team. And you can talk to us. We’re out and about in the different communities around the country. We’re meeting with our advisors. We’re doing a lot of in-person events. So let’s remember, those people are important. Connectivity is everything.

Andy Ogg: I completely agree. And speaking of people — Jackie has retired, well, she’s announced it. I know I’ve met Jackie a handful of times through my tenure here with the family business, and every time she’s a wonderful human being. I saw the press release come across and I went, “Oh my goodness.” So she’s still going hard, isn’t she?

Heather Kindred: Oh yeah, we don’t expect her to slow down until the day she turns off the office light — which is theoretical, because she’s never in her office. We’re excited for her next chapter. I think that she’s going to make good use of her retirement. Hopefully she remembers to rest in retirement. That’s not really in her nature, so we’re excited for her and happy for her next chapter.

Andy Ogg: That’s really exciting, very cool. Oh man, it’s just a wild time to be in this industry. It’s a wild time to be alive with so many things happening and changing in our world. Who would have thought 10 years ago we would be where we are today? You know, we have our phones which hold our boarding passes. You don’t have paper ones anymore. It’s just a crazy time. Through all of these years, we’ve been grateful to be a marketing partner of Nexion’s, and we’ve watched your brand grow. We’ve seen the reviews on FindAHostTravelAgency.com increase. Just had one a couple days ago — a five-star review saying they’ve had the best experience working with y’all. It goes right back to what you said about the people, the customer service, the understanding, the training. That was a really cool thing to see, and you just verified it right now. So it’s really happy to hear that you guys are doing so well. Is there anything you want to touch on? I know you guys did something new in the podcast realm. Can you tell me about that?

Heather Kindred: Yes. So last year we launched a podcast, and it is managed by our communication specialist Chris Dobergo and our one and only director of business development Martin Musey, who has a coaching background. The two of them got in cahoots together and they launched a podcast which they named Easy Travels. You can find it on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube. The YouTube is under the Nexion channel. One of the things that we negotiated — I should say, I negotiated — around this podcast was: it had to be short. I noticed you’re in a similar genre and thought process as me. I don’t have an hour or 90 minutes to invest in a podcast most of the time. It would be multiple listenings. So I said, guys, between 15 and 20, 25 minutes max — like driving your kids to soccer or something. Just a quick one. And that’s what they’ve managed to do. If somebody does have a topic that’s super interesting, they’re breaking it into two separate podcasts. We’ve been interviewing supplier partners. They’ve interviewed some industry leaders. They’ve interviewed each other. They’re doing a new series on what to do locally — so Chris had lived many years in the Alexandria, Virginia area and he did a chat about what to do there. They’re just bringing a lot of different content in short, sweet, funny. I was a guest — very easy, just like this, very natural and very fun. So do subscribe to Easy Travels podcast.

Andy Ogg: I’m sure people are already clicking their way there right now. That’s awesome. Good for them. I’ll have to take a listen to it — I was not aware of that. So I’ll have to go search that up on my podcast list later on today. Heather, it’s been absolutely a pleasure. Is there anything you want to get off your chest before we end up today?

Heather Kindred: Well, I do want to say that if you’re a travel advisor — whether you’re new to the industry or you are experienced and with a host but working pretty much independently — getting out and being around other travel advisors and other people in the industry is worth it. You’ve got to get out of your house, out of your office, and be around people that are going to inspire you, help you learn new things, open up your windows, open up your doors to the opportunities. Connection is really, really important in this industry, and as independent travel advisors and independent agency owners, the isolation is not what you want. So get out, meet people, go to conferences, take advantage of events that your agency has. We have quite a few. Get out and see people. Become part of the travel industry community.

Andy Ogg: I think that’s really, really well put. What’s the next show or event your guys’ team is going to be at, in case anyone’s going out to one of them?

Heather Kindred: Well, we have a few between now and the end of January. We have our Group Sales Summit happening this year in Cancun. We do that every single year — it is extremely wildly popular. We have our Leap Into Luxury virtual event where we bring in a group of luxury sponsor partners to talk about their brands. We do a Luxury Sales Summit, which will happen in Santa Fe, New Mexico this year. That is an application-only event — you have to have a certain amount of sales, but that’s a fantastic event. Then we take a little bit of a break, and we start up again with a brand-new event in January: Romance Sales Summit, all things romance in travel. That’s going to be happening in Punta Cana in January. All of these help grow your business, and that’s our entire goal. Our goal is to get you in a room, help you learn how to do something new, do something different, do something better. And it’s a great way to meet people also.

Andy Ogg: Thank you for asking. That’s awesome. Fantastic. Well, I thank you for the time today. And in the effort of keeping it short — unless you have anything else you want to chat about, I say we wind this up. Heather, it’s always great to talk with you. I really appreciate you taking the time out of your day. I know we had a little bit of a bear getting this thing to happen, and I’m glad we made it happen.

Heather Kindred: Me too. Thank you so much, and good luck with that couch. Maybe you just need a new one.

Andy Ogg: Oh, might have been easier. But no, I’m right back into it. And as my kids say, the fluff — it’s not fluff, it’s everywhere. I feel like I’m just covered in it. Oh, it’s too much. But thank you, I will take that. Good luck. I’ll need it. Thank you, Heather. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day, and I’ll talk to you real soon.

Heather Kindred: Thank you. You too, Andy. Bye bye.

Andy Ogg: Thanks for taking a listen today, and don’t forget to subscribe to the channel for more content like this, or visit us at TravelProfessionalNews.com for more free resources.

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Interview conducted by Andy Ogg, Travel Professional News. Guest: Heather Kindred — Nexion Travel