If you enjoy visiting exotic places and waking up in different cities around the world, a resort sales manager job may be your dream career. As sales management jobs go, it typically has more perks than others.
Resort Sales Manager Job Description
Resort is one of those wonderful nouns that has no negative connotations. It is generally defined as a vacation place, a destination for fun and recreation and/or a location dedicated to providing guests with accommodations and entertainment. Successfully managing a resort requires multiple skills.
Sales and Marketing
The job of a resort sales manager is to convince prospective guests their resort is the best destination at the most excellent price and the location and amenities will provide a superlative vacation experience. The sales presentation should include:
- A detailed description of the resort's most alluring aspects
- Explanations of how each guest's stay will be personalized to meet their individual needs
- Pictures and reports on local entertainment and events that may be of interest to guests
- Recommendations on the best restaurants, lounges and clubs
- Descriptions of incentive programs and perks that offer savings on current or future visits
- Testimonials from satisfied guests and mentions of celebrities or famous people who have visited in the past and highly recommend the place
Customer Service
The resort sales manager job does not end with selling the destination to guests and collecting deposits. The promises made to get the sale require fulfillment to build loyalty and encourage repeat business. Once the guests arrive, it is the manager's job to ensure their stay is flawless and exceeds expectations of excellence so they will return and refer others to the destination as well.
Getting Personal
Making guests feel like friends without being intrusive is a big part of the job. The manager must be adept at making small talk and discreetly discerning preferences and fulfilling them. Having daisies waiting in a guest room based on information gathered in casual conversation or sending a preferred type of food or beverage to a room that proves the manager was genuinely listening to guests' desires can carry as much, if not more weight, than comping a room.
Following Up
After guests return home, a good resort sales manager follows up with them to get feedback on their stay. While a questionnaire evaluating their experience is a helpful tool, a handwritten note thanking them for their patronage and sincerely asking for comments that will help make future visits better is invaluable.
Administrative Tasks
Besides public relations and customer service, the job usually requires a significant amount of administrative work. Depending on the size of the resort, these duties may include preparing sales projections and reports, developing advertising and promotion campaigns and analyzing budgets and expenditures to increase profit margins.
Job Requirements
Although a degree in hospitality management, sales or marketing may be helpful, experience working with the public, especially in a hotel, motel or resort sales environment is often the most preferred background sought by potential employers. Success in sales, especially those of non-essential or recreational products or services, is highly dependent on charisma, personality and the ability to build trust with strangers.
Other Considerations
Socializing with people from many different places and various backgrounds is a big part of the job and the position can be rewarding for those with excellent interpersonal communication and sales skills. However, it often requires long hours, weekend work and frequent travel that may interfere with personal or family obligations.
