Moray Shutt, senior product manager, Getaway Breaks, Best Western Hotels
Education: nine GCSEs and four A’ levels at Rhodesway School, Bradford, modern and medieval languages degree from Cambridge University.
Training: completed the Thomson Holidays Graduate Training Programme.
First travel job: worked as a campsite courier for Eurocamp in the Loire Valley, France, during a year off before going to university
Career path: spent six months shadowing a senior buyer with Thomson in the Mediterranean to learn the art of hotel negotiation and the contracting process. At this point, she was let loose to contract the Ionian island of Kefalonia before being made buyer for Turkey. This role incorporated the negotiation of all the hotels feeding of the three resort airports of Antalaya, Dalaman and Bodrum. Then moved to the Thomson Breakaway division as product manager on the Cities programme with responsibility for the French, German and Eastern European cities featured in the programme. After 16 months, she moved to Best Western Hotels as senior product manager for the Getaway Breaks brand, following the merger with Consort Hotels and the company’s relocation to York.
Advice for people wishing to develop a career in travel: “Gaining exposure to as wide a variety of travel issues leads to an invaluable overall appreciation of the industry. Pragmatism is essential, so being informed of operational limitations is as much a virtue as the ability to think with innovatively and creatively. Constant referral to the customer’s perspective is essential, as is constant referral to the competition.”
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