Sales for Europe: an emotional and expanding business

When you decide to strengthen your sales team you need somebody experienced to take the lead. EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta talks to Patrizia Di Patrizio who has recently been appointed by Rocco Forte Hotels to lead the mainland Europe sales steam about the group’s sales strategy, motivation and meeting the unique needs of various markets within Europe.

Rocco Forte Hotels has been strengthening its global sales team. The group, a family of 13 individual hotels and resorts, has not only focused on its European sales team but has expanded its sales capabilities in Asia, and in Latin America. One of the key appointments, finalised in December last year, featured Rome-based Di Patrizio, who was promoted to lead the mainland Europe sales team covering France, Benelux, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany and Russia.

When Di Patrizio was promoted to her current role, she had the benefit of more than five years experience with the group. So from day one she was already very familiar with the product and her team.

This helped her to focus on developing a ‘one team’ approach, to bring together the respective regional teams to share knowledge, best practices and new ideas. With an ever-growing portfolio of hotels and resorts, it was important to ensure that the team utilised our collective experience and strengths to deliver revenues across our portfolio and to support our new openings in Europe and in the Middle East, says Di Patrizio, who has also been associated with Four Seasons and Mandarin Oriental in the past.

We put some questions to Di Patrizio to find out more.

EFT: What do you count as major achievements for the mainland European sales team over the last year or so?

PDP: Despite the obvious challenges our industry has faced over the past few years, we have worked hard to strengthen our relationships with key partners, who in turn have been very supportive of Rocco Forte Hotels across all regions. We are committed to delivering value to our partners, while ensuring attention to detail, high quality and immaculate service at all resorts. We are very fortunate to belong to a ‘family’ yet a globally recognised luxury hotel group, which retains the individuality of each of our hotels and delivers a very consistent high level of service across the various regions. Customers, no matter what industry or segment they operate in, want exactly that.

EFT: How challenging is to tackle unique needs of various markets within Europe? Can you cite examples?

PDP: I think it is very important to be aware of each market’s unique history and culture as this is clearly reflected in that destination and also influences customer behaviour. All of our sales teams have extensive experience and knowledge of their respective markets, from both a work and a personal perspective, so they truly understand the local culture and nuances. Since launching our first hotels in Edinburgh, Florence and St Petersburg in 1997, we have expanded our operations into a number of key locations in Germany, Italy, the UK and the Middle East. In addition we have opened our first golf and spa resort on Sicily. So we like to think that we have a solid understanding of these respective markets and indeed the needs and demands of the different business segments too.

EFT: What do you make of centralising a sales force?

PDP: This is not our approach and, as such, we have deliberately not adopted this structure. We believe you need to have a good balance between on property sales and regional sales. In most of all of our key markets in Europe we have a hotels and regional presence in which they share a ‘brand’ strategy, but each has their specific sales and marketing plans to address their own respective objectives and targets.

EFT: With new trends emerging all the time and so many different markets, how do you decide where to focus your energy?

PDP: Quite simply you need to know your market inside out and keep up to date with the macro-economic environment that can affect your business. You need to have a team of people with transferable skills, which enables you to be flexible and adjust your organisation as and when needed. This ensures that you are able to manage your resources to look after your key partners, but also identify new opportunities too within existing and new markets. It is critical to have the right balance in place and of course a very good product and a great team!

EFT: How should you develop detailed sales policies and motivate sales managers in effective sales management practices?

PDP: At Rocco Forte Hotels being part of the family is important so we act as if this is our ‘own’. Believing in your product and in your ‘promises’ are fundamentals for any sales manager, more so I think when it comes to hotels, as it tends to be an ‘emotional sale’ as well. Of course, as our portfolio grows, it is also important to have some ‘uniformity and policies’ to enhance performance, but at the same time we let our sales teams retain the autonomy to assess and respond to ever changing needs and make the right decisions.

EFT: What’s on your agenda going forward?

PDP: In addition to its current portfolio of 12 luxurious city hotels, and a state-of-the-art golf and spa resort on the south-west coast of Sicily, Rocco Forte Hotels continues to bring its guests to new and different destinations, with a second Middle East property due to open in Jeddah in the near future. Elsewhere, the company plans to expand into North Africa, with future openings planned in Marrakech, Cairo and Luxor

 

Related Reads

comments powered by Disqus