CV Villas - Product Manager

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Role: Product Manager

Location: Great Suffolk Street, London, SE1 0BE.

Contract Type: Permanent, Full Time, Hybrid - minimum of 3 days in the office per week (Monday - Friday)

CV villas has over 50 years experience of providing luxury handpicked villa holidays, located in sought-after destinations across the world - check them out: cvvillas.com

Are you an experienced Product Manager looking for a new opportunity? We are looking for an individual that is commercially astute, has experience of contracting and has a superb network of contacts within the villa or luxury travel sector.

To apply, please complete application and submit your CV and Covering letter.

Role Overview:

This role involves sourcing, negotiation, and management of villa contracts as well as cultivating relationships with our suppliers. You will also be responsible for conducting market research, launching new destinations, and driving sales and marketing activities for your assigned destinations. Additionally, you will play a crucial role in optimizing pricing and yield, ensuring adherence to health and safety standards, and collaborating with various internal teams to deliver exceptional products and services. Involving frequent travel, this is an exciting opportunity to source amazing villas for CV Villas main and ABOVE brands as well as B2B partners.

Key Responsibilities:

• Demonstrate superior contracting capability and build excellent personal relationships with villa owners and other suppliers, acting as a point of contact in the business and driving excellent service for our partners.

• Ensure you get under the skin of the CV Villas customer and our competitors to make sure that our villas are competitive in a crowded marketplace, in sought after locations at the right price.

• Travel regularly to your destinations to build contacts, cultivate supplier relationships, view existing CV Villas properties and to find new villas.

• Source new villas and negotiate contracts with villa owners, agents and partners for CV Villas main and ABOVE brands and for B2B partners.

• Build excellent relationships with key B2B partners, sourcing villas, contracting and presenting villas and destinations to VIP partners and negotiate high value guarantee contracts.

• Conduct destination research and competitor analysis to create proposals for new destinations and products with evident rationale on demand, value and potential revenue.

• Pioneer new destinations at CV Villas, playing a pivotal role in all aspects of launching a new destination in the company including research, negotiations, site visits, and providing comprehensive briefs for marketing and training the sales team.

• Take commercial responsibility for your destinations, negotiating the best rates and special offers, conducting regular competitor analysis and monitoring and influencing margins.

• Agree annual product and contracting plans for your destinations and meet annual targets for growth.

• Proactively drive sales and gross margin ensuring the necessary action is taken to meet or exceed budgeted numbers. Take personal accountability for the success of your destinations.

• Have a clear understanding of pricing and yield and work with the Head of Commercial to manage margin to optimise your destinations' total contribution to the business.

• Assist the Head of Product and the Product team in driving the Product strategy to produce a positive result for the company through commercial drive, improving processes and performance in the Product team.

• Support the Operations department to ensure product is being delivered to the company standard and suppliers are fulfilling our service level expectations.

• Take ownership for villa quality and standards, monitoring complaints, customer feedback and Feefo reviews, communicating feedback to villa owners and partners and ensuring improvements are in place.

• Communicate complaints to villa owners where needed and negotiate refunds and discounts in the case of complaints and villa moves.

• Ensure your destinations adhere to all Health and Safety criteria and contract guidelines.

• Build, manage and maintain strong inter-departmental relationships and excellent communication within the business. Champion your destinations within the business, driving sales and marketing and acting as a source of knowledge and point of contact for your destinations within CV Villas.

• Assist the Product Coordinators/Assistants in raising contracts, checking accuracy of contracts and ensuring timely and accurate loading in Tiger Bay reservations system.

• Give regular training and support to the Sales team to ensure the business is maximising sales of your destinations and assist with fam trip planning.

• Work with the Marketing team to ensure that your villas are accurately and effectively advertised.

• Act as company representative at key industry events and functions, seeking opportunities to develop partner relationships and grow your network.

General:

• Demonstrate a commitment to the core company values and mission in all actions and decisions

• Act as a brand ambassador, positively representing the group both internally and externally

• Support and promote a diverse and inclusive workplace, respecting perspectives and backgrounds, in order to foster a positive work environment.

• Contribute to a strong team spirit

You will have:

Essential:

• A minimum 2 years' experience in a Product Manager role within the travel industry (experience with contracting villas a bonus)
• Commercially astute
• Exceptional negotiation skills

Desirable:

• Experience with contracting villas
• Superb network of contacts within the villa or luxury travel sector
• Experience with dealing with VIP clients and luxury product

Personal Qualities:

• Innovative and creative with a solution focused approach
• Flexible and adaptable to changing priorities.
• Resourceful and practical; can think on your feet and solve problems quickly and effectively.
• Positive "can do" attitude
• Exceptional communication skills
• Able to quickly build strong and trusted business relationships
• Good presentation skills
• Strong team player
• Decisive and action orientated

• Passion for travel and the villa market
• Willingness to travel

Benefits & Perks:

• 23 days holiday, plus bank holidays (holiday allowance increases with length of service)
• Flexitime (including option to bank hours giving an additional 4 days off per year)
• Additional day off to celebrate your birthday
• 2 volunteer days per year
• Company bonus scheme
• Company matched pension scheme and life assurance
• Company trips
• Free annual travel insurance
• Holiday concessions for personal trips - a complimentary villa per year!
• Friends & family holiday discounts
• Travel season ticket loans
• Cycle to work scheme
• Learning & development opportunities
• In-house wellness team