Senior Sales Manager

Position Summary

The Senior Sales Manager is responsible for driving total hotel revenue for the DoubleTree by Hilton New York JFK Airport across multiple market segments including group, corporate, local negotiated accounts, catering, meetings, and transient business.

This role is heavily focused on proactive sales efforts, relationship building, and market visibility. The ideal candidate must be aggressive in prospecting, comfortable being in front of clients, and able to generate new business while maintaining strong relationships with existing accounts.

The Senior Sales Manager will handle a variety of market segments that may shift based on hotel demand and business needs. While airline relationships are an important part of the JFK market strategy, this position is responsible for handling all major revenue producing segments, not airline business alone.

This role will also support catering and meeting space sales, as many group opportunities include food & beverage components, banquet functions, and meeting room rentals. The hotel offers approximately 6,000 square feet of flexible meeting and event space.

Key Responsibilities

• Generate new business opportunities through proactive prospecting, outside sales calls, networking, client meetings, and site tours.
• Manage and grow revenue across multiple market segments including:
• Corporate groups
• Local negotiated accounts
• Hilton CNR accounts
• Government
• Sports
• Entertainment
• Tour & Travel
• SMERF
• Meetings and events
• Project and training groups
• Market segment focus may change at any time based on business needs, occupancy, and revenue strategy.

Hilton CNR & Local Negotiated Accounts

• Actively manage and grow Local Negotiated Rate (LNR) accounts.
• Work closely with Hilton Global Sales representatives and Hilton National Sales teams managing CNR accounts.
• Build strong relationships with Hilton Global Sales contacts to increase production into the hotel.
• Participate in annual RFP season and rate negotiations.
• Identify opportunities to convert transient business into negotiated corporate accounts.
• Maintain strong relationships with travel managers, agencies, and corporate decision-makers.

Group, Catering & Meeting Space Sales

• Sell guestrooms, meeting space, and catering opportunities for the hotel.
• Assist in closing business involving banquet events, meetings, training sessions, receptions, and food & beverage functions.
• Work closely with Catering, Banquets, Revenue Management, and Operations teams to ensure successful execution of all events.
• Understand meeting room setups, banquet revenue, catering minimums, and event flow.
• Negotiate contracts involving guestrooms, meeting space, catering revenue, and event details while protecting hotel profitability.
• Help maximize revenue across guestrooms, banquet space, catering, parking, and ancillary spend.

Operational & Market Leadership

• Maintain strong knowledge of the JFK Airport market and surrounding competitive set.
• Conduct SWOT analysis and monitor market trends, pricing, and competitor activity.
• Represent the hotel at networking events, community functions, trade events, and industry organizations.
• Maintain visibility within the local market to build long-term business relationships.
• Work closely with hotel leadership to identify need dates and revenue opportunities.

Qualifications

• Minimum 3–5 years of hotel sales experience required, preferably in a full-service, airport, or Hilton-branded hotel environment.
• Hotel sales experience is required.
• Bachelor’s degree preferred, not required.
• Strong understanding of group sales, catering sales, local negotiated accounts, and corporate business.
• Experience handling meeting space and food & beverage revenue preferred.
• Strong knowledge of the JFK Airport market preferred.
• Experience with Delphi, OnQ, PEP, R&I, Cvent, and similar hotel systems preferred.
• Excellent communication, prospecting, negotiation, and relationship-building skills.
• Must be organized, proactive, revenue-driven, and able to work in a fast-paced environment.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities while maintaining strong attention to detail.

Ideal Candidate

The ideal candidate understands that hotel sales is more than responding to leads. This person should be proactive, hungry for business, and comfortable building relationships inside and outside the hotel.

They should understand both the guestrooms side and the catering/event side of the business and be able to confidently close business involving guestrooms, meeting space, and food & beverage revenue.

This person should also be comfortable working closely with Hilton Global Sales teams, local corporate accounts, and key market partners to help drive long term revenue growth for the hotel.