Tag Archives: Hotel Sales Managers

How to be a Great Hotel Sales Manager

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You don’t need a text book, webinars or to be sent away for training.  Being a Great Hotel Sales Manager has just a few key factors you must act on to be the best!

INSTINCT AND DRIVE

If your in Sales you must have the instinct and drive that it takes to keep up in sales and to develop clients relationships.

Not everyone can be in Sales.  A quiet and shy person would not make a good candidate to be a Sales Person.  A true Sales Person must be able to walk up to people to network, ask questions and make connections.  They must be able to comfortably walk into buildings and business parks to cold call without personal fear.  They must be creative, crafty and constantly planning the next attack on where they are going to find or steal new business.

QUALIFY

What does the client need?  How many room nights are they doing a month, quarter, annually?  Are their peak seasons where they are busier?  Who and why are their travelers coming into that location?  What hotel are they currently using?  Find out their rate by calling and making a fake reservation.  See what you are up against and find out why they use that hotel.

Get a site inspection and close the deal.

FOLLOW UP

It doesn’t make sense to cold call day after day and not provide yourself the time you need to follow up on the leads that you have found.  Make sure that you follow up and in a timely manner.

Call back every call!  This is a huge problem in our industry with incoming inquiries and no follow up call back.  Remember the early bird gets the worm!

To be a Great Hotel Sales Person you will need to have instinct and drive, qualifying skills and follow up to close on new deals.  It’s that simple.

For help and ideas check out hotelsalesmanager.com.

Good Luck!

Pure Energy

The Hotel Sales Managers Steps To Detailing a Bus Tour

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There are many types of bus tours groups.  They all have similar needs and requests.  To break them down into segments it would include:

Student Groups, Senior Citizen Groups, Family Reunions, Religious, Entertainment and more.

A lot of the Tour Operators are wholesalers and family or privately owned.  Some have a series of continuous groups coming through during peak seasons.  These are the Accounts that every Sales Manager wants to close.  Others may sell packages and there volume of business would depend on how well they sell the package.

These wholesalers are looking for the best hotel facility, services, convenient location at the best room rate.  Bus parking is extremely important and it’s best when the parking is free.

These groups are an easy sell at the right price for an early breakfast prior to departure unless your property includes the breakfast in the room rate. It is more attractive to the Operator if the breakfast is included.

At times the Sales Person can work out a deal for dinner upon arrival.  They will need to either stop and eat or eat at your hotel providing that you have the facility to do that such as a restaurant or banquet space on the property.

Steps on qualifying and detailing the Bus Tour:

1. From the moment of the inquiry or solicitation call it is important for the Sales Person to bond with the Operator.  Find out how often they are stopping in your area, why, when and what is competition. It could be a one time deal or a continuous package that comes though more than one time.  If you identify a Series then you may need to learn more about who they are using and get some rate information before blurting out a rate.

2. Make sure you have them sign a booking agreement/contract and provide a deposit or at least a credit card authorization.  Don’t make the deal a definite until you receive this information.

3. A Tour Series may want to establish direct billing.  It is not recommended to establish direct billing with any tour company unless they are a volume revenue producer or over $10,000 in rooms revenue.  Base your decision based upon your companies policies.

4. The Sales Person or Sales Coordinator will need to set traces for – returning of the signed contract and method of payment, collecting the rooming list and confirming estimated times of arrival and departure.  This information is very important and the Sales Manager should be sure to communicate all valuable information to the right Managers.

5. Find out if they need portage or baggage service.  The going rate in the Philadelphia market is $4.00 per person round trip.  If they need this service get the staff members lined up and brief them on how it will be performed.  Don’t just assume that if you have a strong employee member that they could do a better job then a weaker or smaller employee.  These bags are usually heavy and even heavier if they have a return trip.

6. Pre-block the rooms in the same area of the hotel.  Since you already have your full payment or credit card authorization you can pre-register these guests in advance prior to the buses arrival.  Block the rooms, check them in, make their key packets and charge the card.  When the bus arrives, have the Tour Escort sign on one registration card and hand them the key packets and a copy of their rooming list including room numbers.  It’s a piece of cake.

7. Get the Tour Escort’s name in advance and their cell number if you can just in case you need to reach them.

8. The Sales Manager or MOD should welcome the Tour Escort and guests upon arrival.

9. Make sure that you have the master room folio ready by the Night Audit. This allows the Tour Escort an easy process in checking out along with having the room receipt that he will have to turn in.

10. Send a Thank you along with a receipt to the Tour Contact.  Trace them out for future business and provide hotel information or just a letter to remind them that your property is there at least quarterly.  Once a Sales Manager establishes the relationship the Wholesalers will be very loyal to them.

If you need some more ideas then log onto www.hotelsalesmanager.com.  The site is awesome and has been very helpful.

Good Luck!

Pure Energy

When And When Not To “walk” The Hotel Guest

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Everyone hates to be handed the highlighter and an arrival list and to mark off who to walk and who not to.  If your property is in a walk situation, you the Sales Person should make sure that they do not walk a regular guest, VIP or a new client reservation.

When there is demand in your market, it is smart business decision to consider “walking” some guest if you want to maximize your revenues.  At an airport location take a look at your Airline Crews who are usually booked at a lower negotiated rate.  Another place to look is your hotwire, priceline, hotels.com and other ecommerce reservations.

First the Sales Manager should identify high demand times that you maybe in a situation to walk guests. Find a hotel that is simular to yours and close in location who will work with you on a Walk Rate.  Establish Direct Billing.  It is much smoother to have a contact or two at the walk hotel so that you can communicate easily.

Lets think about it.  It is normal for any Sales Person not to want to walk.  In serious cases, especially with the Airline Crews, the Sales Person should call their contact to let them know that their crew is going to be displaced.  With advance notice, on most occasions the Airline contacts will work with you.  This is why establishing a good relationship with the contacts is important.  I have used the excuse that a large group has extended and that I am now sold out.

If the Airline Rate is $65.00 per room and your walk hotel has extended the same rate ~ you are selling rack at prime lets say for discussion sake $149.00, then you will profit $84.00 per room.   Take a look at your low rated negotiated, Corporate Lodging or even a tour bus.  I know as a Sales Person this isn’t fun and I hate doing it.  But because I was sincere, communicated with the client and placed them at a simular hotel, I have not lost any accounts.

For the ecommerce guests, the Sales Person will most likely not be able to alert the guest.

The new consumers of traveling are smarter and have been educated.  I am not recommending that you walk your guests or preferred clients.  I am recommending that the Sales Person keeps an eye on the market and is involved with maximizing revenues especially during demand times.  If your property practices Yield Management, then you should not be in a position to have to walk any guests.

Check out www.hotelsalesmanager/members for more information.

It is recommended that the Sales Manager negotiates a walk rate with the hotel prior to actually walking a guest.  Have the forms ready to provide to the hotel to ensure that they have all of the information that they need.  Find a hotel that is close to your location that will work with you on the ”walk rate”.

Don’t forget about your Front Desk Staff.  Are they properly trained to handle the guest?  Practice with them.  If they are uncomfortable and uneducated, most Agents are, then they may crumble and make the guest even angrier.  They will need to stay strong, apologize and be sincere about the situation.  I’ve seen untrained Front Desk Staff actually break down and cry right in front of the guest.  Don’t do this to the Agents, make sure that they know what to do.

Good luck!

Pure Energy