Jay Nelson

Jay Nelson

VP of Business Development for Travel Weekly and Travel Age West

Jay Nelson VP of Business Development for Travel Weekly and Travel Age West

I have 30 years in the travel industry focusing on sales and business development. I have set up and negotiated major contracts with charter airlines, hotels and land operators around the world.  I have also owned and operated two travel agencies and built them to 10 million in sales before selling them. Under Northstar, I worked for the Hotel & Travel Index and held various jobs starting as Sales Director, covering the South East US and the Caribbean. Hotel & Travel Index was the most successful B&B publication in world.  I am currently Associate Publisher, VP of Business Development for Travel Weekly & Travel Age West.

I was introduced to travel at a young age when my parents took me to the Caribbean at 10 years old. Before then, like most kids growing up, travel mostly consisted of driving trips and vacations close to where we lived in New England. I grew up on the water and have always been attracted to the water as long as I can remember. After graduating from college, I worked in the entertainment industry and traveled frequently, but never in one place long enough to appreciate what each destination had to offer. But I enjoyed seeing little snippets of each place. Because of that job, at a young age I had the pleasure of meeting and working with Travel Agents, Hotels and transportation companies and I always told them what a cool job they had getting to meet so many people on vacation.   I knew how lucky I was to combine a career and travel and with that knowledge, I decided I was going to be involved in this industry for the rest of my life.  Enter Northstar Travel Group - it checked all the boxes and combined with my past history, was the perfect match and I’ve never looked back.  I’ve been with Northstar for over 28 and will retire at some point from Northstar being grateful working in such a wonderful industry with amazing people.