Professional Sales
Objective: Introducing personal selling in tourism and
hospitality. Special emphasis will be given to Fam Trips.
Personal Selling



Concerned with direct interaction between the
seller and buyer.
Highly effective form of communication.
Offers chance for the seller to respond to the
individual needs of the customers, provide a
tailored and flexible solution, answer questions,
gain feedback immediately, and adapt the
message.
Advantages







ability to close sales
ability to hold the customer’s attention
immediate feedback and two-way
communications
presentations tailored to individual needs
ability to target customers precisely
ability to cultivate relationships
ability to get immediate action
Disadvantages


high cost per contact
inability to reach some customers as effectively
Functions of the Sales Team





Finding new customers
Selling services
Communicating
Representing the organization
Establishing and maintaining relationships with
customers or other stakeholders
In the tourism and hospitality sector;




Due to nature of the industry, staff
responsibilities include a sales function.
Staff has the opportunity to make a sale, even if
they are not part of the sales team.
Many staff has chance to ‘sell up’ or ‘cross sell’.
Familiarization ‘fam’ trips by tour operators and
hospitality trade to agents have a major role in
tourism.
Role of familiarisation trips;




Familiarization trips are vital to overcome the
intangible nature of tourism services.
They are quite common for intermediaries and
travel press in tourism.
With the help of such trips, intermediaries can
have first-hand information and experience
regarding tourism destinations and operations and
then they act as opinion leaders.
Relationships between the media and tourism
firms and destinations result in greater exposure.
Management of Professional Sales

In tourism and hospitality, regarding personal
selling, the following should be considered;
Nature of hospitality sales
 Sales force objectives
 Sales force structure and size
 Organizing the sales department
 Recruiting and training a professional sales force
 Managing the sales force
 Managing strategic client relationships

Nature of Hospitality Sales


Sales personnel function as the company’s
personal link with its customers.
The cost is high but it is the most effective tool
for hospitality firms since sales representatives
perform important functions including;
Prospecting; salespeople find and cultivate new
customers.
 Targeting; salespeople decide to whom to spend
their time.

Communicating; salespeople communicate
information between the company and the
customers.
 Selling; salespeople know how to approach, present,
answer objections and close sales.
 Servicing; salespeople provide a number of services
to customers including consulting on their problems,
providing technical assistance, arranging financing,
expediting delivery.
 Information gathering; salespeople do market
research and fill in call reports.
 Allocating; salespeople decide who to allocate scarce
resources.





Maintaining strategic partnership; senior salespeople
including the sales manager provide planning
assistance to clients.
Today, rather than just concentrated on selling,
sales people should focus on customer
satisfaction and company profits.
They should know how to analyze sales data,
measure market potential, gather market
intelligence, develop marketing strategies and
proficient in sales tactics.
They should be knowledgeable about marketing
(e.g. yield management) as well as selling.
Sales Force Objectives


Hospitality firms set objectives for their sales
force.
Setting objectives is important because they;
help companies reach their company goals. Goals
include revenue, market share, improving corporate
image, etc.
 help the sales force to plan and execute their sales
programs.






Sales force objectives must be customer designed
annually.
Annual marketing and sales objectives are broken
down quarterly and monthly objectives.
These are further broken down by the sales force
into personal objectives by day and week.
Sales managers are responsible to assign
objectives to individual salespeople.
Common sales objectives include;

Sales volume, upselling and second-chance selling,
market share or market penetration, product-specific
objectives.

Sales volume; is measured in terms of
occupancy, passenger miles, total covers within
tourism. They all mean increasing number of
customers. Emphasis on volume alone means
price dicscounting, attracting undesirable market
segments, and cost cutting.
Sales volume by selected segments; establishing sales
objectives by specific market segment to improve
revenue.
 Sale volume and price/margin mix; establishing sales
volume objectives by product lines to get the desired
gross profit. It is the basis for revenue management.


Upselling and second-chance selling; selling
higher-priced products such as suite rooms
through upselling. On the other hand, secondchance is about selling additional services to
clients who have already booked some services
such as a meeting room for 2 days.

Market share or market penetration; compared
to sales volume, less important for most
hospitalit operations. However, rather than the
individual operations, corporate marketing
departments of a chain is likely to be concerned
with market share.

Product-specific objectives; occasionally sales
force may be given specific responsibility to
improve sales volume for specific product lines
such as memberships.
Sales Force Structure and Size

Common sales force structures in hospitality
include;
Territorial-structured sales force
 Market-segment-structured sales force
 Market-channel-structured sales force
 Customer-structured (key accounts) sales force
 Combination-structured sales force


Sales force size is determined by going through
the following steps;
Customers grouped into size classes according to
their annual sales volume.
 The desirable call frequencies (per year) are
established for each class.
 The number of accounts in each size class is
multiplied by the corresponding call frequency to
find out the total workload.
 The average number of calls a salesperson can make
per year is determined.
 The number of salespeople needed is determined.

Organizing the Sales Department




In hospitality, traditionally, departments are organized
along functional lines.
Therefore, in a hotel, there may be a sales department, a
guest relations department, an advertising and public
relations department, but not a marketing department.
Recently, some hotels started to have sales and
marketing department.
A sales manager is responsible from sales and
marketing, although sales is often more emphasized.

Today, there are two types of salespeople; inside
sales force and a field sales force.

Inside salespeople; there are three types; technicalsupport persons, sales assistants, and telemarketers.
Technical-support persons provide technical
information and answers customer’s questions. Sales
assistants provide clerical support to field
salespersons. They call ahead, confirm appointments,
carry out credit checks, etc. Telemarketers use the
phone to find new customers. They may call up to
fifty customers per day compared four or five that an
outside salesperson contacts.

Field sales force; in hospitality, there are different
types of field sales force as commissioned reps and
salaried sales force. Commissioned sales reps are
used for distant potential markets, since some may
not justify to have a salaried sales force. These reps
may represent several different properties or chains.
Salaried sales force are paid a salary plus benefits.
This one is the backbone of the sales force.
Recruiting and Training



It is important to select the right individuals for
sales. Research showed that top 27 percent of the
sales force bring in over 52 percent of the sales.
In sales force, the following traits are important;
risk taking, powerful sense of mission, problemsolving, care for the customer, and careful
planning.
Among the most important traits, empathy and
ego drive (strong need to make the sale) comes.




The person should be also right for the
corporate culture of the organization.
Especially new graduates with no experience
should be trained.
However, sales training is not a onetime process.
Sales force require training regarding;
Product/service training
 Policies, procedures, and planning training
 Sales techniques training

Managing the Sales Force



Sales success depends on the development of
long-run relationships with clients or accounts.
The 80/20 rule prevails within the hospitality
industry. Most of the business comes from a
minority of the firm’s customers. They are
referred to as key, national or major accounts.
Based on the concept of key customers, the
following general strategies must be followed by
the sales force;

Six key sales strategies;
Preventing erosion of key accounts
 Growing key accounts
 Growing selected marginal accounts
 Eliminating selected marginal accounts
 Retaining selected marginal accounts but providing
lower-cost sales support
 Obtaining new business from selected prospects


Sales force tactics, in other words, these are the
principles of personal selling. The ultimate
purpose of a sales force is to sell. Sales people
are trained in tactics to make a sale. Following
are the major tactics used in personal selling;
Prospecting and qualifying
 Preapproach
 Approach
 Presentation and demonstration
 Negotiation
 Overcoming objections
 Closing
 Follow-up/Maintenance


Motivating the sales force; special incentives can
be given to the sales force to make them work at
their best level. The following may be used;
Sales force compensation
 Supplementary motivators


Evaluation and control of the sales force; sales
force should also be evaluated on their
performance. The following may be used in
evaluations;

Sales quotas, time-and-duty analysis, cost/return
effectiveness of trade shows, formal evaluation of
performance, other control techniques (such as sales
reports, customer complaints etc.).
Managing Strategic Client
Relationships

Relationship marketing; is based on the idea that
important accounts need focused and
continuous attention. Salespeople should
monitor key accounts, know their problems, be
ready to serve, and become part of the client’s
team, rather than just call when they think the
client is ready to make an order.

Strategic alliances; are highly developed from
relationship marketing. They are relationships
between interdependent parties who agree to
cooperate but still keep their separate identities.
They may share databases, market knowledge,
resources, risks, technology. In hospitality, there
are three types of alliances;
One-night stands
 Affairs
 I dos

Sources




McCabe, S. (2009). Marketing Communications in
Tourism and Hospitality: Concepts, Strategies and
Cases. Butterworth-Heinemann: Oxford.
Kotler, P.; Bowen, J. and Makens, J. (1999). Marketing
for Hospitality and Tourism (2nd ed.). Prentice Hall:
New Jersey.
Kotler, P.; Bowen, J. and Makens, J. (2010). Marketing
for Hospitality and Tourism (5th ed.). Prentice Hall:
New Jersey.
Kotler, P. and Armstrong, G. (2010) Principles of
Marketing (13th ed.). Prentice Hall: New Jersey.