Commercial Manager, New Hotel Openings

Role Purpose

This role is responsible for ensuring that hotels open On Time, On Brand and On Budget by supporting the Directors of Commercial and VP Commercial in region to manage the commercial activity for new hotel openings and hotel conversions, coordinating activities of all functions of sales, marketing, PR, Channels, distribution and relationship management through the utilization and embedding of common commercial tools, processes and procedures.
 

Key Accountabilities

• Drive the Commercial critical path ensuring all commercial tasks are completed on time, by the correct person or team and ensure any applicable processes, tools and procedures are consistently applied in all openings and conversions.
• Develop and execute the opening-year commercial strategy for allocated openings, shaping market entry, brand positioning and demand priorities to support ramp up.
• Manage the communication and sales, marketing, PR, distribution marketing and revenue performance activity for new opening hotels with the Director, Commercial/Area Director of Sales and Marketing and between hotel and above property functions.
• Provide cross-functional oversight across sales, marketing, PR, distribution and revenue, ensuring activity is aligned, delivered on time and compliant with IHG distribution policy.
• Partner with Ownco, General Managers, Directors of Commercial and functional leaders to guide key commercial decisions and align priorities.
• Leverage the IHG Commercial Engine to set up the new opening for commercial success and ramp up.
• Provide overall project management for allocated openings, including the Pre-Opening Budget and structured guidance across milestones, dependencies and decision points.
• Review results to identify gaps and risks, escalating to the Senior Commercial Manager as required, and monitor pick up and trends to inform sales, marketing and pricing activity.
• Brief, direct and quality-check System Activation, NHOP Hub outputs, rather than executing activation tasks directly.
• Own the commercial handover to the Director of Commercial, including the handover pack, briefing, risk summary and sign-off.
• Influence hotel teams to adopt IHG tools and processes and ensure commercial levers are taken up and embedded across allocated openings, drawing on best practice from global and regional teams.
   

Critical Expertise, Experience and Educational Attainment Required

Educational Attainment:

• Degree or equivalent international degree in Marketing or Business desired
   

Critical Expertise & Experience:

• Is able to demonstrate external industry knowledge and continuous leaning, keeping up to date with current trends
• International hotel brand strategic sales and marketing experience
• Experience in Hotel Sales and Marketing in a senior management role
• Clear project management capability
• Has experience participating in an industry task force
• Good working knowledge of IHG systems and the ability to understand and drive outcomes within the IHG network
• Has a deep understanding of the markets and the context of operating in a diverse region