Catering Manager jobs in Virginia Beach, VA

Join us at the Delta Hotel by Marriott Virginia Beach Waterfront, just steps away from Chesapeake Bay. From our casually elegant dining room to our bayside deck, come work at the perfect place to start your career in hospitality! 

At Crescent Hotels & Resorts, we are a team of hospitality professionals that are deeply connected to & proud of the exceptional experiences we provide for our guests. More than that, we know our Associates are the shining stars of what we do!

We understand what it takes to be a part of something great. We will encourage you to bring your true self to work every day, we will celebrate you and we will cheer you on as you shine bright in your career journey. Whether it be our health & wellness programs, best in class learning and development or our travel discounts that ‘feed your inner explorer’, we work hard to create and deliver on what YOU need.  We are ready for you to start your journey with us where You Belong. We Care. Shine Bright.

We are looking for our next great team member to join us on our Sales & Marketing team. We are committed to providing you with:

• Highly competitive wages
• An exceptional benefit plan for eligible associates & your family members
• 401K matching program for eligible associates
• Flexible scheduling to allow you to focus on what is important to you.
• Discounts with our Crescent managed properties in North America for you & your family members
• Marriott Employee Room Rate Discount Program

Here is what you will be doing each day:

• Manages the sales efforts for the property including local corporate and social catering.
• Responds to incoming catering opportunities for the property.
• Identifies, qualifies and solicits new catering business to achieve personal and property revenue goals.
• Solicits affiliate business associated with citywide events from approved affiliate list provided by Citywide Sales Executive.
• Understands the overall market - competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, economic trends, supply and demand etc. and knows how to sell against them.
• Closes the best opportunities for the property based on market conditions and property needs.
• Uses negotiating skills and creative selling abilities to close on business and negotiate contracts.
• Works with the management team to create and implement a catering sales plan addressing revenue, customers and market.
• Designs, develops and sells creative catered events.
• Maximizes revenue by up-selling packages and creative food and beverage.
• Develops and manages catering sales revenue and operation budgets and provides forecasting reports.
• Develops menus that drive sales.
• Assists with selling, implementation and follow-through of catering promotions.
• Executes and supports Marriott’s Customer Service Standards and hotel’s Brand Standards.
• Executes and supports the operational aspects of business booked (e.g., generating proposal, writing contract, customer correspondence).
• Establishes that the property implements a seamless turnover from sales to operations and back to sales while consistently delivering high level of service.
• Monitors the effective resolution of guest issues that arise as a result of the sales process by creating mechanisms to channel issues to property leadership.
• Handles social, government and corporate catering opportunities.
• Contracts and closes local catering and social business and confirms that business is turned over properly and in a timely fashion for quality service delivery.
• Achieves catering revenue goals by actively up selling each business opportunity to maximize revenue.
• Implements the brand’s service strategy and applicable brand initiatives in all aspects of the sales process and drives customer loyalty by delivering service excellence throughout each customer experience.
• Performs other duties, as assigned, to meet business needs.

Building Successful Relationships

• Interacts effectively with sales, vendors, competitors, local community, catering associations and other hotel departments in order to monitor guest satisfaction.
• Executes exemplary customer service to drive customer satisfaction and loyalty by assisting the customer and monitoring their satisfaction before and during their program/event.
• Gains understanding of the property’s primary target customer and service expectations; serves the customer by understanding their business, business issues and concerns, to offer better business solution both prior to, and during the program/event.
• Develops a close working relationship with operations to execute strategies at the property level.
• CI-TY experience preferred but not required.
• 2 years of catering sales experience.

At Crescent Hotels & Resorts we strive to create a great place to work where associates at all levels of our organization are respected for their differences, just like the guests and owners we serve.  That’s why we are dedicated to creating an environment that facilitates open and honest conversations about race, equity, diversity, and inclusion.  By examining our own beliefs and behaviors, we can create change through training, recruiting, and promoting diverse talent to strengthen our culture.