What does a hotel director of sales do?
There is a mid rise (I'm not sure may be 9 stories or so) hotel being built near me.  Class A, a bunch of street level retail, I'm assuming small conference etc.  They are trying to hire a director of sales.  The owners have properties in multiple countries but generally focus on upscale mixed use I believe.  This isn't a hilton, its more like a 30 property type group.

Googling this seems to indicate it a 30k-120k job that could be anything from managing/leasing commercial space and marketing to convention visitors etc for blocks of rooms to the guy who sits at the desk and listens to people bitch that the tv is fuzzy and there was a pube on the bath towel.  

Any of you hotel guys have thoughts here?  This one particular development appeals to me for a few reasons (it is very close to where I live, I know everyone in the city etc where it is, and it is a significant development).  I can't figure out if they are looking for a senior type position or if they are title inflating bottom rung property management.  I assume the way to find that out is to apply, which I'll probably do.  

Any help is appreciated though.  I have about 10 years of property management experience, and about 6-7 years of investment commercial brokerage experience (though I've done retail etc deals commonly)
[{"id": "d19f3pe", "text": "I work for a Hotel Management Company on the marketing side of things, we have 80+ hotels.\n\nWhat you will do is fill rooms. You will meet with key accounts in the area, CAE, HP, Government etc. and see when they have training or people in town. You will give tours of the hotel to said people and negotiate rates. Most of the time with local clients you will negotiate rates, but sometimes larger companies have pre-negotiated rates. At that point you are selling your hotel product and staff. You will likely have help with this working for a mangement company, Revenue Managers who work at corperate will help you set rates and give you intelligence on what is going on rate wise in the market etc. \n\nDepending on the hotel the Director will also have sales teams to handle smaller accounts and to fill event space, catering etc. ", "replies": [{"id": "d19h7qy", "text": "Any idea where one goes after this?  Do they typically move to regional positions or do you kind of top out?\n\nedit-  thank you for the response btw.  Outside of internal movement, do people move from positions like that to acquisitions and dispositions or capital funding ever?  Or are those just too far unrelated?\n\n", "replies": [{"id": "d19l65c", "text": "Yes there are a few options. You can move to a larger hotel in the same market or a better brand of hotel. There is also a difference between full service and select service hotels in how they are sold, run, and clients they attract. \n\n\nDepending on the company, you could move up to manage a cluster of hotels. In some cities we have 4 different hotels on the same block. So in that case you are managing a team of people to help sell all hotels.\n\n\nAlso depending on the company you may be able to move to a regional position overseeing multiple sales teams and providing support. And then above them to Regional VP. \n\n\nInternally at my company i haven't seen anyone move from sales and operations to development in the 4 years iv'e been here. But my company is pretty separated in that aspect. We have a development company and we have a management company that is separate.\n\n\nHowever, there are a few options. The President of my Company started at our company as a front desk agent going to college. I know of a few GM's that have gone on to purchase their own hotels. And One person I know now specializes in flipping hotels. He will find a property that is not doing well and buy it and flip it in less than a year. Usually it is a staff issue, not the product, the last few the hotels were fine but they were just being run incorrectly, he bought one for around $2.7MM and sold it for over $6MM.", "replies": [{"id": "d19tjid", "text": "Any idea typically what they are looking for in candidates?  Would having no experience with hotels be a large issue if you have a lot of B2b selling experience and strong local connections? ", "replies": [{"id": "d19wyjh", "text": "Strong local connections would be a huge plus. I'm sure they would like people with hotel experience but you can learn the industry stuff pretty quick. If you are a director they would probably be looking for leadership experience too. ", "replies": [{"id": "d19xry7", "text": "Thanks again.  \n\nIf I'm not qualified that is what it is I guess.  I was kind of concerned it be more like you are the guy who schedules the front desk, puts shit up on travel websites and deals with stuff when a guest asks to talk to a manager.  Sounds like it is more like I was hoping", "replies": [], "depth": 6}], "depth": 5}], "depth": 4}], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}]