Role Purpose

Provide direction, oversight and expert-level sales leadership to Brand portfolio, sales and/or marketing staff to facilitate development of hotel level revenue and room night sales. Engage hotel leadership; assess local market dynamics, current industry trends, and sales figures; and determine the strategic direction for marketing and sales operations in each assigned hotel, ensuring plans and strategy are implemented in a timely and effective manner by hotel management. Identify training needs; recommend levels of training and/or training companies; coordinate cluster sales and marketing activities, which benefit hotels with common needs, market segments, and/or feeder markets. In addition, ensure the effective integration of national marketing initiatives at the local/regional level through tactical, co-op promotions.

Key Accountabilities

• Guide team in finding the best approach for implementing and communicating strategic plans and new company initiatives to owners when deployed to hotel locations.
• Partner with team and other key stakeholders to assess competitive data, brainstorming on new ideas to better implement strategies, developing innovative consulting or organizational tools/playbooks, researching trends, planning for implementation of targeted programs to hotels
• Develop, coach and provide ongoing support and ensuring that there is the right mix of skills within the team to drive performance and results.
• Implement, maintain, and measure commercial sales, initiatives, and tools with a particular focus on full adoption and execution.
• Enabling the successful delivery of market events
• Assess the current deployment of the sales organization and its focus, and develop tactical project plans to ensure the successful deployment of revenue maximization strategies. Monitor and identify strategic changes to be made to existing tactical and strategic plans, and provide finalized information and leadership to the hotel management staff regarding the development and implementation of sales plans, which will be used to maximize hotel profit.
• Create and develop hotel sales and marketing plans and objectives, which maximize enterprise value while maintaining brand identity and standards. Evaluate and report programs’ progress; and ensure that all programs are in line with Company standards; communicate newly designed programs to hotels.
• Identify hotel level operational problems which impact the effectiveness of marketing activities and overall hotel sales performance; and facilitate the successful creation of local and regional marketing campaigns tied to National Marketing efforts that drive measurable, incremental occupancy.
• Develop and implement of targeted sales initiatives designed to penetrate specific market segments or key accounts. Evaluate and track revenue performance of hotels in portfolio vs. their performance targets, and work to continuously improve IHG sales processes that drive performance and build an environment to support a stronger sales culture.
• Assist in the creation of tactical, cooperative promotions for hotels in a similar geographical area or cluster (i.e. HMA’s, lead referral programs); plan, organize, and conduct cluster activities based on the needs of the hotels.
• Organize marketing training workshops for the hotels as needed to implement marketing programs. Assess additional training needs based on data gathered from on-site Sales and Marketing SRDT’s designed to measure sales and marketing efficiencies. Plan, organize, and conduct regional Sales Management and Training workshops for hotel sales personnel as needed.

Key Skills & Experiences

Education –

Bachelor's or Master's Degree in Hotel Management, Business Administration, Marketing, Communications, Advertising or a relevant field of work, or an equivalent combination of education and work related experience.

Experience –

10+ years progressive sales-related work experience, including development and execution of tactical sales programs (business plans) in a regional or multi-hotel corporate setting or similar. Demonstrated proficiency in multiple disciplines/technologies/processes related to the position as well as 5 to 7 years managing teams and/or significant complex projects.

Technical Skills and Knowledge –

• Demonstrated project management experience in organizing, planning and executing large-scale projects from conception through implementation.
• Demonstrated effective verbal and written communication skills for the purpose of providing technical and legal information to clients, vendors, senior management and staff.
• Demonstrated knowledge of hotel operations, training principles and procedures and hotel systems (i.e., HOLIDEX, HIRO, etc.)
• Demonstrated knowledge of marketing and sales principles and ability to develop, implement and monitor related programs.
• Demonstrated experience in brand marketing and implementation of brand marketing programs.
• Demonstrated understanding of sales incentive systems and performance metrics.
• Demonstrated understanding of effective sales processes, including demonstrated closing ability, ability to motivate a sales staff, and ability to develop a successful sale and marketing organization.