Location
London

Hours
Full Time

Salary
Negotiable

About the Role
The Mercure London Earls Court hotel is a newly renovated property in Southwest London, featuring 508 bedrooms across two Accor brands: 226 Ibis rooms and 282 Mercure rooms. The hotel boasts the versatile London Suite ballroom, divisible into nine meeting rooms and capable of hosting events up to 1200 guests. The F&B outlets, designed by PARIS SOCIETY, include Barnaby’s Kitchen and Barnaby’s Lounge Bar, ideal for social events and private functions.

The Reservations & Leisure Sales Manager leads the Reservations Department and drives leisure sales performance to maximise hotel revenue and profitability. Reporting to the Commercial Office Manager, this role manages day-to-day reservations operations, ensuring enquiries, bookings, and group reservations are handled efficiently and aligned with hotel and Accor brand standards.

This position is responsible for developing leisure business across Group Leisure, Series, and Wholesale segments, building strong client relationships, identifying new business opportunities, and collaborating closely with Commercial, Revenue, and Operations teams to meet commercial objectives. The manager leads, develops, and motivates the reservations team, fostering a culture of commercial awareness, service excellence, and continuous improvement while ensuring effective communication across departments.

Main Responsibilities
Commercial Overview
- Develop and implement the annual Leisure Sales Strategy with the Commercial Office Manager and Director of Sales & Marketing.
- Conduct regular Leisure Strategy Meetings to review production, market trends, opportunities, and competitor activity.
- Drive leisure revenue across FIT, Group Leisure, Series, and Wholesale segments.
- Negotiate contracted rates, allocations, and commercial agreements for leisure series and tour operators.
- Manage leisure account production, analyse performance, and identify growth opportunities.
- Conduct materialisation meetings and calls with leisure partners to review contracted vs actual production and implement recovery plans.
- Build and maintain strong relationships with tour operators, wholesalers, DMCs, coach operators, and leisure travel agents.
- Participate in Leisure on Tour events, trade shows, networking, client entertainment, and familiarisation trips.
- Host site inspections and educational visits for leisure partners and key accounts.
- Develop new leisure business opportunities domestically and internationally.
- Convert ad-hoc leisure enquiries into long-term contracted business.
- Monitor market trends, competitor activity, and demand patterns to support pricing and commercial decisions.
- Collaborate with Revenue Management to align leisure rates, allocations, and availability with commercial strategy.
- Ensure leisure business contributes positively to hotel profitability.
- Prepare and present commercial reports and slides on department focus areas, wins, losses, and reservation strategies.
- Understand customer segmentation and negotiate across MICE/Group, Transient Negotiated, Corporate, and Transient Wholesale business mixes.
Team Management & Delegation
- Lead daily operations of the Reservations Department, ensuring professional handling of enquiries within agreed response times.
- Oversee transient, corporate, leisure, and group reservations.
- Ensure accurate processing of reservations using correct market and rate codes.
- Monitor inboxes and workload distribution to maintain service standards.
- Complete daily operational checklists including arrivals, audits, traces, correspondence, and reporting.
- Administer prepaid reservations, guarantees, deposits, and no-show procedures.
- Maintain reservation accuracy and guest profile compliance with GDPR.
- Uphold reservation procedures per hotel and Accor standards.
- Manage commission processing and Fastcom administration.
- Recruit, coach, develop, and retain a high-performing team.
- Deliver structured training on leisure quotations, pricing, upselling, commercial awareness, negotiation, customer service, and hotel systems.
- Conduct regular one-to-one meetings and performance reviews.
- Maintain current and measurable training plans.
- Foster a commercial culture encouraging revenue opportunity identification.
- Cross-train team members in Sales, Events, and Revenue functions.
- Set individual and departmental KPIs aligned with commercial objectives.
- Encourage ownership, accountability, and continuous improvement.
Commercial Reporting
- Prepare weekly and monthly reports on leisure production, series performance, materialisation, conversion, market trends, revenue opportunities, and lost business analysis.
- Present commercial updates during revenue and commercial meetings.
- Maintain accurate leisure business forecasting.
- Analyse account performance and recommend strategic actions.
- Ensure compliance with company policies and Accor brand standards.
- Maintain accurate customer records and contractual documentation.
- Manage departmental payroll, holidays, sickness, and scheduling.
- Support budgeting and cost control.
- Approve invoices and departmental expenditure as applicable.
- Complete Duty Manager shifts as required.
- Maintain Health & Safety compliance within the department.
- Undertake other reasonable duties as assigned by the Commercial Office Manager or Director of Sales & Marketing.

Key Performance Indicators
- Leisure revenue growth
- Group Leisure & Series production
- Materialisation performance
- Leisure account retention and acquisition
- Conversion ratio
- Average Daily Rate (ADR) in the Tour Segment
- Revenue per Available Room (RevPAR) contribution
- Group dinner and ancillary revenue
- Reservation response times
- Team engagement and development
- Commercial reporting accuracy
- Departmental quality scores

Additional Information
Employee benefit card offering discounted rates at Accor worldwide
Free and delicious meal breaks on duty
Complimentary stays in UK and Northern Ireland
Friends & Family discounts
50% food discounts in our restaurants
Pension Scheme
Health Insurance
Eye Test Vouchers
Staff Uniforms Provided
Learning programs through Accor Academies
Opportunities to develop talent and grow within the property and globally
Ability to contribute through Corporate Social Responsibility activities such as Planet 2
Candidates must have the right to work in the UK
Note: The Company reserves the right to amend this job description to reflect evolving business needs.

Experience
Proven experience in reservations management and leisure sales within the hospitality industry. Strong background in negotiating commercial agreements and managing leisure accounts across multiple market segments. Experience leading and developing high-performing teams. Familiarity with hotel systems such as Opera and Fastcom is essential.

About you
Commercially aware with excellent negotiation and communication skills. Strong leadership capabilities with the ability to motivate and develop a team. Customer-focused with a passion for service excellence. Analytical mindset with the ability to interpret market trends and data to inform strategy. Organised, proactive, and able to manage multiple priorities effectively. Comfortable working collaboratively across departments and with external partners.

Qualifications
Relevant hospitality or business qualifications are desirable but not mandatory. Commitment to continuous professional development and training. Right to work in the