Product and Operations Manager (France) in Watford

Grape Escapes is a leading tour operator, specialising in luxury tailor-made trips to the premium wine regions of France, Spain, Italy and Portugal. Established in 2004, we have over 20 years of experience in creating wine tours. We are now looking to tweak the team with a stronger focus on luxury and responsiveness, by recruiting additional people who share our passion for providing unforgettable experiences as well as superb customer service.

This is an exciting opportunity for a passionate and highly motivated individual to join our small, supportive, and collaborative team. In this role, you will be responsible for sourcing new suppliers, negotiating competitive rates and contracts, and nurturing strong supplier relationships. You will also play a key role in supporting the regional sales team with day-to-day supplier-related tasks, ensuring smooth operations and excellent service delivery.

To facilitate this, the role will include:

• Sourcing and liaising with new suppliers, as well as negotiating favourable rates and signing contracts.
• Working as an integral part of the wider sales team to collectively find inspiration for new offerings.
• Liaising with the Marketing team to create product-related marketing content including website write ups.
• Providing inspiration to the sales team for bespoke itineraries and activities.
• Actively maintaining excellent supplier relations.
• Keeping up to date on supplier news and changes, and sharing any important information with the regional sales team as well as updating the internal systems.
• Regularly representing Grape Escapes in meetings with suppliers and at trade fairs, and ensuring all discussions are followed up with timely actions, including progressing potential new partnerships identified by you or your colleagues.
• Visiting and assessing new hotels, vineyards and restaurants etc.
• Maintaining the electronic rates folders, keeping prices and information up to date.
• Maintaining our internal quote building system (Tourplan) in an accurate way to ensure that all data is correct and available to the sales team to facilitate accurate customer proposals.
• Being on the duty manager rota for out of hours enquiries from customers currently travelling with Grape Escapes.
• Providing support to the sales team in dealing with operational issues, whether that be urgent duty manager issues, or issues logged on the Product Support log.
• Investigating supplier issues and drafting a response from a product perspective to any negative customer feedback.
• Undertaking administration, product development and business development projects as required.
• Any additional duties as may reasonably be required.

REQUIRED SKILLS

• Excellent communication skills
• Strong IT skills including a good working knowledge of Excel
• Good Tourplan knowledge or the ability to quickly pick up new IT systems
• Good interpersonal skills
• Excellent attention to detail
• Steadiness under pressure
• Strong time management skills including the ability to manage your own workload
• Ability to speak, read and write in French

DESIRED SKILLS

• Ability to speak, read and write in an additional European language
• Strong mathematical skills

BENEFITS

In return, Grape Escapes is offering a competitive, results driven salary in a friendly working environment, together with additional benefits.

• £32,000- £40,000 FTE (depending on experience)
• 23 days annual leave
• Flexible working (with the freedom to accrue hours to take up to an additional 12 days off each year)
• Annual bonus

HOURS/ LOCATION:

This role is a 37.5 hour per week (Monday-Friday) full time role based at our offices in Hertford, Hertfordshire. We are happy to support a hybrid working from home/office arrangement if preferred (minimum 5 days per fortnight in the office).

To apply, please contact with your CV and a cover letter explaining, in your own words, why we should consider your application. Applications made solely via LinkedIn will NOT be considered.