Hotelier Awards 2018 shortlist: Sales person of the year

We reveal the nine shortlisted nominees for the Hotelier Middle East Awards 2018 Sales Person of the Year category.

Click through to find out who has been shortlisted this year...

Ahmad Al Ajam, Sales Manager, InterContinental Al Khobar

Ahmad Al Ajam plays great role in contributing valuable figures to the property’s overall budget. In 2017, Ahmad delivered revenue of US$49K (251 room nights). Year to date, Ahmad made a huge leap in 2018 by delivering a total of US$164K total revenue YTD, that reflects over 233% improvement against last year and 254% improvement in terms of room nights production. These figures exclude Royal Protocol productivity of over US$720K during the 10-day Arab League Summit that echoes a huge positive variance compared to last year.

From his experience working with guests, it became easy for him to understand guests’ needs and wants. His goal is to always exceed expectations by putting customer satisfaction as his first priority and by getting issues resolved in an efficient way. He believes in building a trustful and honest relationship with the other party for better outcomes.

Sarah Christiane Hazim, Director of Catering and Events, InterContinental Muscat

Hazim has also increased a significant 50% on the year-on-year revenue for the hotel. She also increased total C&E Revenue YOY by 50% in 2018 compared to 2017 by contracting major catering contracts and managing the relation with the booker consistently to increase the hotel’s revenue share. Hazim Managed to establish an exclusive contract & relation with one of the most prestigious institution in Oman (Royal Opera House) and established a positioning in terms of themed events at the hotel as for the balls within communities & clubs and increased their activities as with the embassies and unique experiences with a solid collaboration with the F&B department which contributed to an increase of 20% of this segment. Sarah is a hotelier with overflowing passion to her field of work. She has built a solid relationship with her clients and has gained their trust and confidence over the years.

Saeed Ishaqat, Director of Sales & Marketing, Holiday Inn Amman

Last year was a good year to harvest what Ishaqat planted in 2016. He had a very successful year with good results and achievements with his team by bringing more than 100 new corporate accounts, raising the corporate business by 29% and the leisure groups by 59% and a growth by 30% in the MICE business compared to 2016. Holiday Inn Amman was listed one of the top 20 hotels in EMEA within IHG hotels for October and November by achieving exceeding targets in MICE business. For 2018 (YTD) Ishaqat managed to close a long stay agreement to enter the year with 8% occupancy as a base business and got number one in RGI YTD vs 2/5 last year.

Harpreet Singh Arora, Sales Executive, Millennium Plaza Hotel Dubai

Due to his outstanding performance, Arora was promoted as Sales Executive managing an account portfolio of 150 key corporate accounts for the hotel and contributing almost 45% single highhandedly to the overall revenue. Within his first year of being a sales executive, Arora has introduced 62 new corporate accounts with an overall revenue of AED 984,000. These new accounts were introduced to the property with rooms and banqueting business targeting accounts from our competitors. He managed to close the deal and signed a full year contract with a recognised training company for three meeting rooms every week, with overall estimated revenue AED 1.2 Million. Arora does not only focus on local corporate but also global accounts listing eight new accepted RFPs for the year 2018 considering the negative history of the hotel in terms of Global Corporate RFP Accounts. With these new accounts, the hotel has estimated revenue of AED 400,000.

Sameh El Shelkami, Senior Sales Manager, InterContinental Riyadh

Sameh El Shelkami developed his sales talents through IHGs unique training like Solution Selling, IHG Way of Sales, IHG RFP and utilised them to produce the desired outcomes. He achieved more than his set targets every year and he is a role model for all the Sales associates in the hotel. El Shelkami has established a very good client base in the key hotel segments like Corporate, Pharma industry and has a good relationship with the key companies such as Accenture, ABB, SAP, Pfizer and Sanofi. This has helped him a lot to generate high room nights production of 8524 RNs with a total revenue of SR. 7,095,000 during last 12 months. He has also contributed towards SR. 6,257,000 in Conference & exhibitions segment. He has very easily surpassed and produced over 183% of his annual sales target. He has constantly exhibited successful sales records since he joined InterContinental Riyadh.

Tamer Taha Khalaf, Director of Sales – Business Travel, The Ritz-Carlton, Riyadh

Khalaf went above and beyond his duty especially during the November 2017 crisis of The Ritz-Carlton, Riyadh. With the normal hotel operations disrupted, Khalaf was one of the key leaders who mediated with all involved corporate accounts applying high-level of negotiation skills for clients that we considered a base business for the hotel. He ensures that he understands guests’ behaviour and strategizes plans and actions that help increase guest’s satisfaction and revenue.

Wang Bhutia, Cluster Senior Sales Manager, Hilton Garden Inn Dubai Al Mina

Since he joined Hilton, Bhutia has been dedicated towards targeting and securing new accounts. Modus operandi to target was by doing extensive research finding out the white contacts and getting to know all information possible about the accounts. This has led to break through in 90% of the accounts targeted by him. The net result has been almost a 300% increase in the performance of one particular segment of the hotel. On quarterly basis he prefers to do SWOT analysis which reflects any changes and team stays updated with risk/opportunities for the business.

Saber Merry, Sales Manager, InterContinental Hotel Jeddah

Merry excelled in Q4 of 2017 in terms of corporate business and brought in lots of companies for Ramadan sponsorship. He was responsible for remarkable financial returns with +48% over the budget of 2016. Merry also performed well in the MICE segment, gathering SR. 40 million ($11.1M) in 2016 with improvement of 48% against the budget. Under his Accounts: 17 corporate accounts produced with 18,780 total room nights with improvement of 28% vs last year during the same period. Merry delivered wedding revenue of SR 2.8M (US$$747K), an improvement on last year. In the corporate meetings segments, he accomplished 980 meetings for one account with a revenue of SR. 6.8 million (US$1.8M) where he grabbed the business for both FY 2017 & 2018.

Reinhard Rodriguez, Sales Manager, Bab Al Qasr Hotel & Residences by Millennium

After graduating as valedictorian from the University of Santo Thomas in Manila, Reinhard Rodriguez started working in 2013 at Fairmont Bab Al Bahr – first as Reservations Coordinator and then as Sales Coordinator, after his skills became apparent. During this period, he also completed a course in sales growth through Cornell University. In late 2015, Rodriguez pursued an opportunity at Sheraton Dubai Creek Hotel as Sales Specialist for groups and events. There, he converted several dormant accounts into producing accounts.