Royal Caribbean has restructured its sales team and made seven appointments.
Three promotions have been made within the changes, which came into effect at the start of October, including Luke Vanderhoeven who has gone from key account manager to field sales manager. He is now responsible for looking after the sales development managers.
Royal Caribbean had four sales development managers at the start of the year, which it has now increased to six.
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Three new hires have been made: Ellie Lamb (pictured left) to cover the northeast, Molly Ewns (centre) the southeast and Laura Bailey (right) the southwest.
The trio join Emma Sweeney, who has returned from maternity leave to cover Scotland, Nicki Quintana, who covers central and east England and Rachel Oakes who covers the northwest.
Caroline Barnett was previously a regional sales manager covering the northwest, but has been promoted to key account manager.
Director of sales Stuart Byron told Travel Weekly the sales development manager role has been refocused to provide staff with more “autonomy and empowerment” in their positions by giving them end-to-end responsibility for their accounts.
He said the line has had a “phenomenal” reaction to the team’s expansion, as staff are doing “everything they can to support agents”.
“The retail world has come back to life like nothing else and it’s firing on all cylinders so we’ve worked really hard to review our structure and make opportunities to recreate our field sales team,” he said.
“There’s nothing better than being able to promote internal talent so we are thrilled we’ve had the opportunity to do so, and also really excited to welcome some new talent into the business.
“One of the great thing about the restructuring is the development of the sales development manager role which now gives more autonomy as well as teaching account management skills.
“We did this to build in the best possible career opportunities so our hope is that they will move up in the business when they are ready.”
Royal Caribbean has hired Danny Girling as a key account manager, tasked with securing new business and promoted Sophie Wilson and Kelly Ashby from key account managers to divisional sales managers responsible for the north and south, respectively.
“These are two really important promotions from people within the team and they both have loads to sink their teeth into in their new positions,” said Byron.
“The expanded sales team demonstrates how critically important the trade is to the Royal Caribbean brand as all these changes have been made so we can effectively support our agent partners.”
Vanderhoeven said: “We are here to support the trade and we’ve positioned ourselves to ensure we are bolstering both retail and homeworking agents as much as we can going into 2024.”