Travel Product Manager

Job title Travel Product Manager

Job purpose:

The purpose of the Travel Product Manager role is to enhance the companys travel offerings by strategically sourcing negotiating and managing relationships with various travel suppliers including hotels airlines and other service providers.

The role is pivotal in ensuring competitive pricing highquality service and innovative product features to meet and exceed customer expectations.

The Travel Product Manager will be responsible for optimizing backend operations and workflows to ensure efficient and seamless service delivery while also maintaining regulatory compliance and industry standards.

Job Summary:

As a Travel Product Manager at our client you will take charge of developing and managing our travel products portfolio by establishing strong partnerships with travel suppliers and service providers.

Your role involves a deep understanding of the travel market dynamics direct negotiations with suppliers to secure the best rates and terms and ensuring a competitive edge for our offerings. You will play a critical role in defining the operational processes that underpin a superior customer experience from booking to the completion of travel. Collaborating with various internal teams you will drive enhancements in our travel products aiming for higher customer conversion rates and retention through continuous innovation and improvement.

Your responsibilities will also include staying abreast of industry trends and competitor strategies ensuring our travel products remain bestinclass. The role demands a blend of strategic vision operational excellence and a customercentric approach to drive the overall success of our travel offerings.

Key responsibilities:

Identify negotiate and onboard travel suppliers (hotels airlines transfers activities holiday packages etc.) direct contracting with hotels Airline NDC fares Insurance companies payment gateway partners and other such suppliers.

Suppliers can be GDS travel aggregators DMCs or even directly with partners

Manage and ascertain IATA accreditation for company

Get the best commercial terms including extended credit period wherever possible

Make sure that supplier is fully compliant with government and financial regulations

Ensure proper contracting is closed with well defined SLAs incentives and penalties and offer milestones

Coordination with suppliers for matters requiring escalation or attention

Responsible for industry and competition tracking o Rate parity and benchmarking o Identify improved service providers and onboarding them o Identify trends in customer workflows and onboarding and adopt best practices in those

Responsible for contracting payment gateways and ensuring their service delivery

Analyzing financial performance data across bookings suppliers etc to ensure margin optimization across suppliers.

Coordinate with multiple stakeholders internally at CC for constantly enhancing user experience and revenue generation from the platform including providing new business requirements / user stories etc.

Responsible for ensuring a high quality user experience and driving the travel product strategy.

Act as a bridge between technical and nontechnical stakeholders by ensuring the technical feature development and strategy are scoped to satisfy the short and longterm needs of the business.

Play an active role in testing out new features / functionalities as a business user

Requirements

Key Skills:

1. Negotiation and Contracting Skills: Ability to negotiate favourable terms with travel suppliers including hotels and airlines and to finalize contracts with clear SLAs incentives and penalties.

2. Supplier Relationship Management: Proficient in managing relationships with various travel suppliers including GDS travel aggregators DMCs and direct partners.

3. Regulatory Compliance: Knowledge of relevant government and financial regulations affecting the travel industry including IATA accreditation.

4. Analytical Skills: Capable of analyzing financial performance data to optimize margins across suppliers and improve operational efficiency.

5. Project Management: Strong project management skills to coordinate with multiple stakeholders manage timelines and ensure the successful delivery of travel products and features.

6. Customer Experience Focus: A strong focus on delivering highquality user experiences and the ability to identify and implement improvements in customer workflows and interfaces.

7. Innovation and Trend Analysis: Keen ability to scan the competitive landscape identify trends and innovate to maintain and enhance the competitiveness of LC offerings.

8. Technical Liaison: Ability to act as an intermediary between technical and nontechnical stakeholders ensuring that technical developments align with business needs

Experience Requirements:

1. Industry Experience: Proven experience in the travel industry particularly in product management supplier management or a related field.

2. Supplier Negotiation: Demonstrated experience in negotiating and contracting with travel suppliers including direct contracting with hotels and airlines.

3. Product Development: Experience in identifying testing and rolling out new features or functions to improve the product and operational efficiency.

4. Stakeholder Management: Experience working with multiple stakeholders within an organization to drive product strategy and improve customer conversion and retention

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):

1. Supplier Acquisition and Management: Number of new suppliers onboarded quality of supplier relationships and compliance with SLAs.

2. Commercial Terms Improvement: Improvement in commercial terms with suppliers including discounts extended credit periods and margin optimization.

3. Customer Experience Metrics: Customer satisfaction scores customer conversion rates and customer retention rates.

4. Operational Efficiency: Reduction in manual processes through automation decreased timetoresolution for customer and supplier issues and overall improvement in backend operational workflows.

5. Product Innovation and Competitiveness: Number of new features or functions implemented competitive benchmarking metrics and rate parity achievements.

6. Financial Performance: Revenue growth from travel products margin improvement across suppliers and cost savings achieved through negotiations and operational efficiencies.

Key Skills: 1. Supplier Acquisition and Management: Number of new suppliers onboarded, quality of supplier relationships, and compliance with SLAs. 2. Commercial Terms Improvement: Improvement in commercial terms with suppliers, including discounts, extended credit periods, and margin optimization. 3. Customer Experience Metrics: Customer satisfaction scores, customer conversion rates, and customer retention rates. 4. Operational Efficiency: Reduction in manual processes through automation, decreased time-toresolution for customer and supplier issues, and overall improvement in back-end operational workflows. 5. Product Innovation and Competitiveness: Number of new features or functions implemented, competitive benchmarking metrics, and rate parity achievements. 6. Financial Performance: Revenue growth from travel products, margin improvement across suppliers, and cost savings achieved through negotiations and operational efficiencies.