Reporting to the Vice President, Global Marketing, the Director – Travel executes strategy aligned to enterprise priorities. Owns the end-to-end commercial and operational performance of the Cruise and Hotel product lines. Leads strategic execution across pricing, yield management, supply optimization, and customer experience while leading back-end operations and servicing teams to deliver seamless, high-quality booking and post-booking experiences.
This role blends commercial strategy, analytics, supplier management, and operational excellence, with accountability for revenue growth, margin optimization, service quality, and scalability.
Expected Contributions
Product & Commercial Strategy
- Define and evolve the multi-year strategy for Cruise and Hotel product categories aligned with overall company growth objectives.
- Own the full product lifecycle including sourcing strategy, pricing architecture, yield management, inventory optimization, and promotional planning.
- Partner with Marketing, Sales, and Digital teams to ensure products are positioned effectively and differentiated in-market.
- Identify and prioritize new opportunities (e.g., exclusive partnerships, bundled offerings, differentiated amenities, loyalty-driven products).
Pricing & Yield Management – Partner with Interval’s Revenue Management team to translate the following in actionable marketing / call center agent education:
- Establish pricing and yield strategies to maximize revenue, margin, and conversion across Cruise and Hotel portfolios.
- Implement dynamic pricing frameworks, forecasting models, and performance dashboards.
- Balance supplier costs, competitive positioning, customer value, and internal margin targets.
- Drive continuous testing and optimization of pricing, packaging, and promotional levers.
Supplier & Partner Management
- Lead strategic relationships with cruise lines, hotel partners, technology providers and aggregators.
- Own contract negotiations, commercial terms, allotments, and performance governance.
- Ensure supplier partners align to service-level expectations and brand standards.
- Leverage partner relationships to unlock exclusive value and differentiated customer experiences.
Operations & Service Delivery Leadership
- Lead the back-end operations and customer servicing teams supporting Cruise and Hotel bookings, including fulfillment, changes, cancellations, and issue resolution.
- Design scalable operational processes that balance efficiency, quality, and customer satisfaction.
- Establish service KPIs (e.g., turnaround time, first-contact resolution, CSAT/NPS).
- Drive training, tooling, and workflow improvements to elevate agent effectiveness and customer experience.
Customer Experience Optimization
- Own the end-to-end customer journey from booking through post-travel support.
- Identify friction points and lead cross-functional improvements with Technology, UX, and Operations.
- Use customer insights and service feedback to inform product and process enhancements.
- Ensure Cruise and Hotel experiences consistently meet or exceed brand promises.
Analytics, Performance & Governance
- Define success metrics across revenue, margin, conversion, service, and retention.
- Develop performance reporting and business reviews for executive stakeholders.
- Use data and insights to guide prioritization, investment decisions, and trade-offs.
- Maintain strong governance, risk management, and compliance across operations.
People Leadership
- Build, lead, and develop a high-performing team across strategy, operations, and service functions.
- Set clear goals, accountability, and development plans for direct and indirect reports.
- Foster a culture of customer obsession, ownership, and continuous improvement.
- Act as a senior leader and mentor within the broader Travel organization.
Education
- Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing, Business Administration, Communications, or related discipline or equivalent work experience.
Work Experience
- At least 10 years of experience in travel, hospitality, or marketplace businesses, with ownership of P&L, pricing, or product strategy.
- At least 3 years managing team.
- Deep experience in Cruise and/or Hotel categories (preferred).
- Proven success leading pricing and yield management initiatives in a complex environment.
- Strong operational leadership experience, including customer service or fulfillment teams.
- Track record of building and scaling teams and processes.
- Experience in Hotel Management, Vacation Ownership, Hospitality preferred.
- Strong analytical acumen with the ability to translate data into strategy and action.
- Executive-level communication and stakeholder management skills.
Skills and Attributions
- Strategic mindset with an ability to make difficult and complex decisions.
- Creates alignment and empowerment through strong leadership, management discipline, and clear communication.
- Skilled at building and nurturing relationships at all levels of the organization through collaboration, negotiation, and mentoring.
- Influences senior leaders’ thinking early to ensure decisions align with business priorities and deliver results.
- Knowledge of marketing resources policies, practices, and procedures.
- Facilitates meaningful discussions and delivers clear presentations and training that build capability and drive alignment.
- Strong written and verbal communications skills.
- Skilled in decision-making and conflict resolution in a fast paced, continuously changing, customer focused environment.
- Passion for strategic involvement in the creation and execution of departmental and company-wide goals and objectives.
- Knowledge of marketing trends and practices within the industry.
- Flexibility, adaptability, and capability to manage and prioritize multiple and conflicting priorities and tasks.
- Integrates and balances priorities, work activities and resources for the benefit of multiple key stakeholders.
- Understands how to manage in a culturally diverse work environment.
- Experience with Qualtrics, Business Objects or similar, Adobe Analytics and Adobe Campaign preferred.
- Computer literacy on Microsoft Office products, e.g., Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Teams, etc.
Marriott Vacations Worldwide is an equal opportunity employer committed to hiring a diverse workforce and sustaining an inclusive culture.
