Dir Sales & Marketing A

Job Summary

Le Méridien Hotels & Resorts is seeking a Director of Sales & Marketing A for its location in Makkah. This full-time role is responsible for overseeing the hotel's sales department, particularly for properties with over 300 rooms during peak booking periods and significant local food and beverage revenue. The Director will manage both reactive and proactive sales efforts, provide daily leadership to the sales team, and ensure the achievement of sales targets, booking goals, and overall hotel revenue.

Core Responsibilities

• Implement brand service strategies and initiatives across all aspects of the sales process, focusing on building value-based, long-term customer relationships to meet hotel sales objectives.
• Evaluate the hotel's engagement across various sales channels (*, regional sales, sales office group sales, electronic channels) and establish strong working relationships to proactively position and promote the hotel.
• Manage the marketing budget to develop hotel-specific activities, promotions, and collateral that drive revenue and achieve hotel goals.
• Collaborate with regional marketing communications to advance regional and national promotional activities.
• Develop and implement a hotel-wide strategy to deliver products and services that meet or exceed the needs and expectations of target customers and hotel employees, ensuring a return on investment for owners and Marriott International.
• Manage the development of strategic account plans based on market demand triggers.
• Provide customer intelligence to assess market and economic trends that may lead to changes in sales strategy.
• Review STAR reports and competitive shopping reports, utilizing other resources to maintain awareness of the hotel's market position.
• Research competitor sales team strategies to identify opportunities for increasing occupancy, RevPAR, and market share.
• Participate in sales strategy meetings and provide input on weekly and overall sales strategies.
• Propose innovative marketing concepts and deployment strategies to continuously increase market share.
• Evaluate and support regional sales and sales office group sales engagement and client deployment.
• Act as the sales liaison for the General Manager, hotel leadership team, group sales, and regional sales executives.
• Serve as the sales liaison and advocate for clients, and the hotel's authorized signatory for sales processes and contracts.
• Participate in sales calls with sales and marketing team members to secure new business and/or close existing business.
• Identify public relations opportunities and coordinate activities to reinforce the overall marketing communications strategy.
• Support the General Manager by coordinating crisis communications.
• Execute and support Marriott customer service standards and hotel brand standards.
• Execute and support the operational aspects of business booked (*, generating proposals, writing contracts, customer correspondence).
• Participate in and practice brand's daily service basics (*, MHR Service Communities Daily Basics, RHR Intuitive Service Basics, Courtyard, SpringHill Suites, Fairfield Inn Daily Basics, Residence Inn Daily Huddle, or TownePlace Suites Morning Meeting).
• Ensure a seamless transition from sales to operations and back to sales, consistently delivering a high level of service.
• Manage effective solutions for customer issues resulting from the sales process by establishing a mechanism to communicate issues to hotel leadership and/or other appropriate stakeholders.
• Maintain successful performance by increasing revenues, controlling expenses, and providing a return on investment for the owner and Marriott International.
• Perform other assigned duties as needed to meet business demands.

Relationship Management

• Build strong partner relationships with local organizations to enhance brand/product awareness.
• Establish and manage relationships with key internal stakeholders.
• Build strong community and public relations by ensuring hotel participation in local, regional, and national trade shows and client events.
• Demonstrate exemplary customer service by assisting customers and monitoring their satisfaction before and during their programs/events to enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Serve customers by understanding their needs and recommending features and services that best meet their needs and exceed their expectations, building relationships and loyalty to Marriott.
• Understand the hotel's primary target customer and service expectations; serve them by understanding their business, business issues, and concerns, and providing better business solutions before and during their programs/events.

Leadership and Development

• Set sales goals and strategies, ensuring alignment with brand business strategies.
• Execute sales strategies to achieve personal and team booking goals.
• Guide revenue generation leaders in developing effective revenue strategies and setting aggressive goals that drive hotel financial performance.
• Verify that the sales team understands and utilizes the Marriott International (MI) demand engines.
• Collaborate with Human Resources, Engineering, and Loss Prevention to monitor compliance with local, state, and federal laws and/or union requirements.
• Partner with Human Resources to attract, develop, and retain appropriate talent to support the market's strategic priorities.
• Establish effective structures, processes, work, and performance management systems.
• Utilize the Leadership Performance Process (LPP) to set goals and expectations for direct reports; administer performance and rewards; address performance issues, and hold employees accountable for successful performance.
• Forecast talent needs with Human Resources (HR) and manage talent acquisition strategies to minimize lost time due to attrition.
• Maintain a roster of top sales performers from competitors and execute recruiting and hiring plans with HR.
• Provide support for tools and training resources to guide sales associates in securing food and beverage solutions.
• Support leadership development and workforce planning priorities by assessing, selecting, retaining, and developing diverse, high-caliber talent who can lead the company today and strengthen the leadership bench for the future; continuously upgrade the business skills of sales and marketing talent; partner with HR to forecast future talent needs based on business growth plans.
• Identify, train, and mentor team sales associates; utilize all available on-the-job training tools for employees.
• Transfer functional knowledge and foster team selling skills in other professional managers.

Experience and Qualifications

• Minimum of 5-10 years of experience in sales and marketing, preferably within the hospitality industry.
• Demonstrated ability to lead a sales team and achieve revenue targets.
• Strong understanding of market trends and competitive landscapes.
• Experience in managing budgets and developing promotional activities.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.

Work Environment

This is a full-time position based in Makkah, Saudi Arabia, at Le Méridien Hotels & Resorts. The role involves working within a dynamic hotel environment, collaborating with various departments and external partners to achieve sales and marketing objectives.