Business Development Manager, National and Strategic Accounts

Private Destinations•Santa Clarita, CA

11h•Remote

About The Position

One of the best-known names in cruising, Cunard is the world’s leading international premium cruise line, carrying millions of guests each year to hundreds of destinations around the globe. With parent company Carnival Corporation, Cunard is well known for its White Star Service and Trans-Atlantic Crossings. We are looking to hire a Business Development Manager-National Account in Santa Clarita, California to successfully maximize the company’s financial goals, develop a strong business relationship with our national accounts/consortia, key accounts, and host travel partners, while upholding the company’s core values.. Collaborates cross-functionally with commercial, creative, analytics, and revenue teams to support lead generation, prospect nurturing, and guest lifecycle communications, while maintaining strong quality control, timeline management, and performance tracking. Here’s a summary of what Cunard is looking for in a Business Development Manager-National Accounts. Is this you?

Requirements

Bachelor's Degree or Equivalent Experience. 5-7 years in cruise/hotel/hospitality industry required.
Excellent written, verbal communication and presentation skills. Understand travel industry business models, ability to work effectively with remote teams/individuals. Excellent analytical skills, proficient in Microsoft Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Salesforce management tool. Ability to lead, coach and motivate travel advisors and to help them develop business and marketing plans. Ability to work independently and effectively with agent partners and executives at all levels. Ability to negotiate account issues and facilitate resolutions across various departments throughout the company.

Responsibilities

Sets goals with top accounts including annual, quarterly, and trade where applicable.
Strategizes with accounts to meet company and account goals.
Works with each account to maximize the selling of our brand
Develops Sales & Marketing plans, national promotions, incentives, events, and training opportunities.
Initiates meetings with the accounts leadership team to discuss strategies for continuing and/or improving the accounts performance based on the analysis of the accounts business portfolio
Advocate on behalf of agency management team and/or owners regarding policies, experience, and opportunities to gain market share.
Works with Director, National Accounts in the negotiation of the annual business terms for all account agreements tendered
Defines an annual contact strategy with key accounts to provide consistent, effective engagement and collaboration
Plan and attend import functions, seminars, conferences, top producer events and trade shows.
Sets periodic training with top accounts
Oversees the accounts efforts utilizing their allocated cooperative marketing, conferences/events and promotions budget agreed upon to advertise our brand effectively and efficiently to increase sales and profitability
Provides consistent reporting of account performance and tracking to goal to upper management monthly
Analyzes accounts and competitive trends to identify sales growth opportunities.
Responsibility to alert the Director, National Accounts of any overage/savings in budgetary allocations as soon as the run rate of expenditures indicates a savings is likely and/or re-allocation of funding for investment funding opportunities.
Works with each account to increase YOY revenues through maximum utilization of the company programs and sales tools.
Promotes and advocates the use of group program, exclusive promotions/offers to assure maximization of group space and amenities
Analysis of inventory and advises accounts of sales opportunities
Creates “out of the box” exclusive programs to create value-added proposition for accounts and their customers. For example, exclusive value-added amenity programs.
Organizes and prioritizes various projects that are required on “as need basis”. For example, conference/events calendar management, concessions cabin, road show and cruise sale utilization.
Supports the development of annual marketing plans for accounts where applicable
Manages and tracks all approved co-op marketing including the vetting and proofing of various marketing pieces
Ensures appropriate use of brand imaging, logos, and selection of trade/product to advertise
Collaborates with marketing on the development of brand consistent presentations.
Collaborates with marketing for brand position, consumer trends and co-branding opportunities.
Develops marketing intelligence of competitive activities and materials
Drives agent participation and completion of Academy training.
Reviews and tracks account marketing plans
Responsible for the submission of commitments and ensures accounts invoices, pre-bills are submitted and processed in a timely manner
Helps ensure that T&E budget targets are met
Submits timely Pcard expenses and iexpense reports
Manages air, hotel, and car travel
Attends consortia/national account conferences, imports, account familiarization cruises, sales meeting events, top producer events, and regional training events
Provides competitive data to commercial/product team for evaluation and pricing strategy
Provides feedback to onboard product group regarding trade partner and customer experiences
Communicates with guest services, customer services, contact center and partner support team to ensure trade partner relationships are meeting and exceeding service level expectations.
Advocates to company head office on behalf of Agency owners, managers and agents regarding business opportunities, policies, service delivery experiences.
Attends corporate development workshops and training
Stays abreast of all company communications, policies, product enhancements and itineraries
Stays abreast of all industry developments by ready trade publications, attending industry events and networking