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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Hotels Supply Business Development Manager

💰 $ - $

Business DevelopmentSupplyHotelsTravelSalesPartnerships

🎯 Role Definition

The Hotels Supply Business Development Manager is responsible for acquiring, onboarding, and optimizing hotel partners to maximize room inventory, commercial performance, and guest satisfaction. This role combines proactive hotel sourcing, complex contract negotiation, revenue optimization, product and operations coordination, and relationship management. The ideal candidate will have a proven track record with OTAs, hotel chains or global distribution systems, strong commercial acumen, and the ability to drive scalable supply strategies across markets.

Key SEO phrases: hotel supply manager, hotel partnerships, supplier acquisition, hotel commercial manager, hotel sourcing, OTA supply growth, contract negotiation, PMS integration.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Hotel Account Executive / Regional Sales Executive (Hotels)
  • Business Development Executive at an OTA or travel tech company
  • Hotel Chain Commercial / Revenue Manager

Advancement To:

  • Senior Supply Manager / Head of Supply
  • Director of Hotel Partnerships or Director of Supply Strategy
  • VP of Global Supply or Chief Commercial Officer (for smaller marketplaces)

Lateral Moves:

  • Marketplace Commercial Manager
  • Strategic Account Director
  • Product Manager (Supply/Product partnerships)

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Lead proactive hotel sourcing and market penetration initiatives: identify target hotels (independent, boutique, chains), build a prioritized pipeline, qualify prospects, and execute outreach strategies to rapidly scale room inventory and market coverage.
  • Manage end-to-end commercial negotiations with hotels and groups, including negotiating rates, commission structures, allotments, payment terms, cancellation policies, and exclusivity clauses to maximize margin and competitiveness.
  • Build and maintain a robust pipeline in CRM (e.g., Salesforce): track prospecting activities, forecast supply acquisitions, set realistic targets, and report weekly/monthly progress to regional leadership.
  • Create and execute market-specific supply acquisition plans based on demand data, competitor benchmarks, seasonality, yield curves, and corporate strategy to deliver sustainable revenue uplift.
  • Close hotel partnerships and commercial agreements, ensuring all contractual terms are compliant, scalable, and aligned with legal and finance requirements; coordinate contract sign-off and archiving.
  • Lead cross-functional onboarding for new hotel partners—coordinate with product, integrations, content, operations and finance teams to ensure seamless PMS/API integrations, rate plans configuration, and content completeness.
  • Drive partner performance management: define KPIs (occupancy, ADR, RevPAR, conversion, cancellation rate), run monthly business reviews, identify growth opportunities, and implement corrective action plans.
  • Implement dynamic pricing and inventory strategies with Revenue Management and Yield teams to maximize booking conversion and partner profitability across channels and seasons.
  • Monitor distribution and rate parity across OTAs, GDS, metasearch and direct channels, proactively resolve MAP/price parity breaches and work with partners to protect channel economics.
  • Lead negotiation and rollout of promotional campaigns, flash sales, and seasonal promotions with marketing and channel teams, ensuring offers are attractive to guests and profitable to hotels.
  • Manage partner onboarding projects including HTNG/PMS integrations, API testing, content imports (photos, descriptions), and QA of live listings to guarantee high-quality inventory and guest experience.
  • Develop and present commercial cases for prioritized inventory acquisitions, including financial models, ROI analysis, and sensitivity testing for senior stakeholders.
  • Collaborate with Legal and Finance to define billing, commission reconciliation processes, and dispute resolution workflows to ensure timely and accurate partner payments.
  • Execute partner retention strategies: identify risk signals for churn, run targeted engagement plans, offer commercial incentives, and create loyalty programs for strategic partners.
  • Represent the company at industry events, trade shows, and partner meetings to strengthen relationships, generate new leads, and enhance brand presence in key markets.
  • Drive cross-border expansion by identifying new source markets, localizing commercial propositions, and establishing relationships with regional chains and management companies.
  • Conduct competitor and market intelligence analysis—track competitor inventory, rate strategies, and distribution moves to inform proactive adjustments to supply strategy.
  • Coordinate with Product, Engineering and Data to prioritize integrations, feature requests, and marketplace improvements that remove friction for partners and accelerate time-to-live.
  • Manage special projects such as RFPs for corporate accounts, group allotments, MICE partnerships, and strategic wholesale agreements to expand product breadth.
  • Train and mentor junior supply/onboarding specialists and regional BDMs; set clear targets, provide coaching on negotiation best-practices, and ensure consistent commercial execution.
  • Ensure high standards of partner data quality—validate property metadata, amenities, room types and policies, and partner-facing content to reduce booking errors and negative guest reviews.
  • Maintain up-to-date knowledge of hospitality regulations, tax implications, and market-specific compliance requirements to minimize legal and financial risks.
  • Prepare detailed weekly and monthly reports (dashboarding) for leadership including supply growth, rate trends, partner performance, pipeline health and forecast variance analysis.
  • Negotiate and manage third-party relationships (channel managers, GDS providers, PMS vendors) to expand distribution, reduce operational friction and improve inventory yield.
  • Implement and monitor partner incentive programs (bonuses, commission tiers, marketing cooperatives) to accelerate desired behaviors and meet acquisition/retention targets.
  • Lead operational troubleshooting for live properties—coordinate resolution of rate mismatches, mapping issues, and booking exceptions with ops and partner teams to protect customer experience.

Secondary Functions

  • Partner with Data Science and Analytics to produce ad-hoc performance analysis, A/B test results, and partner segmentation to inform prioritization and commercial decisions.
  • Support integrations and technical onboarding by documenting business requirements, mapping data flows, and validating APIs with engineering and partner technical teams.
  • Contribute to the development of supply team SOPs, playbooks, negotiation templates and standard contract clauses to improve operational scalability.
  • Assist commercial marketing and digital teams with content briefings, partner case studies, and co-marketing plans to increase visibility and direct bookings.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies when working on product or integration features that impact hotel supply workflows.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Proven commercial negotiation and contract management experience with hotels or travel suppliers.
  • CRM proficiency (Salesforce, HubSpot or similar) for pipeline management and forecasting.
  • Strong Excel modeling skills including pivot tables, VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP, scenario/ROI modeling and basic VBA/automation.
  • Experience with channel managers, PMS integration standards (HTNG, XML, JSON, REST APIs) and common PMS vendors (Oracle Hospitality, RDP, Cloudbeds, Mews).
  • Familiarity with revenue management concepts: ADR, RevPAR, occupancy, dynamic pricing, allotments and blackout rules.
  • Data literacy: ability to read dashboards (Tableau, Power BI, Looker), interpret KPIs and collaborate on SQL-based analyses.
  • Experience working with GDS, metasearch, or OTA distribution mechanics and rate parity enforcement.
  • Contract drafting and comprehension—comfortable coordinating with legal counsel on terms, amendments and SLAs.
  • Experience with partner performance tracking tools and configuring partner dashboards.
  • Budgeting and P&L awareness for commercial initiatives and partner incentive programs.

Soft Skills

  • Exceptional negotiation and commercial instincts with a results-driven mindset.
  • Strong interpersonal and relationship management skills to build credibility with hotel owners, general managers and corporate procurement.
  • Excellent written and verbal communication—capable of producing commercial proposals, presentations and board-level summaries.
  • Project management and organizational skills—manages multiple onboarding projects simultaneously and delivers to deadlines.
  • Analytical problem-solving—able to translate data into actionable growth plans and make data-informed decisions.
  • Resilience and adaptability—comfortable working in dynamic, fast-paced marketplaces and handling ambiguity.
  • Influencing and stakeholder management—aligns cross-functional teams behind partner priorities.
  • Customer-centric focus—prioritizes hotel and guest experience to reduce friction and refunds.
  • Coaching and team leadership—mentors junior colleagues and scales best practices across the region.
  • Cultural sensitivity and negotiation across diverse markets and languages.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Business, Hospitality Management, Marketing, Economics, or a related field.

Preferred Education:

  • MBA or Master’s in Hospitality Management or related advanced degree; professional certifications in revenue management or contract negotiation are a plus.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Hospitality Management
  • Business Administration / Commerce
  • Sales & Marketing
  • Economics
  • Data Analytics (as applied to commercial decision-making)

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 3–8 years in hotel sales, OTA supply, travel marketplace commercial roles or hotel partnerships.

Preferred:

  • 4–6+ years of direct experience acquiring and managing hotel supply for an OTA, wholesaler, travel tech platform, or global distribution channel.
  • Proven track record of hitting supply acquisition and revenue targets, closing complex group and chain agreements, and delivering measurable inventory growth.
  • Experience across multiple markets/regions and familiarity with local market dynamics, PMS ecosystems, and regulatory considerations.
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