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Travel Operations Manager

Run Wild Retreats + Wellness

Posted: June 1, 2023

Status: Full-time employee

Department: Administration

FLSA Status: Exempt

Salary: $60,000 – $65,000 + Benefits

Commitment: Monday – Friday, 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. Mtn Time (with occasional after-hours emergency calls)

Location: Fully Remote with 1 – 2 travel opportunities per year Start Date: ASAP

Run Wild Retreats + Wellness is a fast-growing, women-led travel company with big plans for expansion in the active wellness travel market. We are committed to excellence in everything we do and are passionate about delivering world-class retreats that rival those offered by luxury travel brands 10X our size. We are a tight-knit team of just 7 women who work closely together around a shared mission for designing and leading transformational travel experiences. While our team is entirely remote and spread throughout the U.S., our regular online meetings and annual in-person team retreat allow us to feel deeply connected and trusting, since we all count on one another to do her part.

As the Travel Operations Manager, you’re truly at the heart of all the action, working with the CEO, administrative team, finance team and field staff (not to mention our global network of guides and suppliers) to make sure that milestones are achieved on time, service quality standards are being met, and processes and systems are flowing. If something’s not quite right, you’re able to identify the problem and work with team members on a solution. As an experienced travel planner, you bring new and creative retreat concepts and destinations to the table. You recognize opportunities in today’s global travel market that are uniquely suited to Run Wild Retreats’ strengths and are eager to share your insights and ideas with the team. What wellness experiences and adventure activities would you combine? Where would you take our vast community of loyal, 40+ aged women? If you’re looking for a place to spread your wings and play a leadership role in pioneering new and creative transformational travel experiences for a highly discerning clientele, then WE WANT YOU!

What We’re Looking For

We are seeking an experienced travel planner to lead our travel operations department. The right person in for this role has previous experience working for a well-established tour operator, preferably in the adventure travel and/or luxury wellness travel space. The right person for this role will have a proven track record in managing at least 25 + global group tours per year as well as a team field staff and travel designers. Plus:

• You have existing strong relationships and experience working with DMCs, guides, and other suppliers.
• You have the RFP process on lock. You deeply understand the guest experience and dynamics of group travel and how to vet suppliers.
• You have experience in developing risk management plans and trip leader briefing materials.
• You have extensive experience managing trip budgets and costing, factoring in all variable and fixed costs, including foreign currencies.
• You have extensive experience negotiating vendor contracts, independent guide contracts and hotel booking contracts.
• You have at least 5 years’ experience in travel planning for a tour operator, including working with domestic and international suppliers.
• You have strong written and verbal communication skills.
• You are 100% comfortable working in a digital space, using cloud-based project management software, spreadsheets and a myriad of digital software tools to mange workflows.
• You are extremely detail-oriented, always check your work so that typos, omissions or calculations rarely go uncorrected.
• You are self-sufficient but simultaneously thrive as part of a small team and enjoy collaborating with others.
• You share our passion for travel, are detail-oriented and capable of juggling multiple trips at different stages in their life-cycle.
• You understand what makes travel transformational and can incorporate those moments into the itineraries you design.
• You are process-driven, logical thinker, can anticipate problems, highly organized and a creative problem solver. You get the immediate priorities done and can also step back and look at the bigger picture and contribute to the overall strategic plan.

Your Responsibilities

MANAGEMENT & LEADERSHIP

• Ensure clear lines of communication between the clients, guides, retreat leaders and key suppliers. Provide suppliers with contracts, rooming lists, special dietary requests, additional reservations and/or cancellations.
• Manage and support retreat leaders prior to and during the retreats.
• Work collaboratively with the Sales Manager to manage inventory to avoid over-payments or cancellation penalties, ensure all special requests have been communicated and confirmed, and gather/provide information as needed for completion of pre-retreat information.
• Propose ways to improve and optimize workflow processes and operational systems.
• Review retreat leader reports and guide incident reports at the end of each trip, make recommendations for future program development. Monitor post-trip guest feedback, record comments and suggestions, and adjust future itineraries as necessary.
• Travel with retreat groups to learn about the retreat experience; conduct scouting trips to potential new retreat destinations.
• Work with the CEO to manage trip budgets ensuring trip profitability and sustainable growth.

TRAVEL PLANNING

• Identify and implement enhancements to existing itineraries to improve the guest experience and further differentiate our product. Participate in the research and development of new itineraries, investigate competitors’ product offerings and utilize competitive information in building itineraries and developing pricing recommendations.
• Work closely with the financial team to report and classify all retreat expenses.
• Provide internal documentations to Retreat Leaders that ensures their complete understanding of itinerary details, highlights and key product differentiators.
• Negotiate and secure bookings for all accommodations, daily activities and pre/post-trip extensions, as required.
• Manage trip financials (payment schedules and trip costing) pertaining to all elements that influence retreat profit margins. When needed, request multiple bids and negotiate with operators to determine costs for services and provide detailed information to be used in pricing programs. Review and submit all operational payments and report on budget versus actual costs after trip completion.
• Develop and implement of the company’s health and safety protocols.

NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

• Research and develop productive working relationships with DMCs, guides and key suppliers in multiple destinations.
• Apply transformational travel principles and our proprietary mindful itinerary design processes to new retreat development process.
• Design new domestic and international active wellness travel retreats.

Benefits + Perks

• Flexibility of schedule and work from home
• Attend industry tradeshows hosted by our member organizations, such as the ATTA, Transformational Travel Council
• Employee rate on RWR international running retreats (when space is available)
• Tax-free health-expense allowance (HRA)
• 15 days of PTO (including sick days) and 10 holiday days per year + your birthday
• A super fun team that loves travel, wellness, personal growth, and active adventure
• Run Wild Retreats is highly invested in developing professional skills for all employees. We’ll help you identify goals, create an action plan, and provide the tools for reaching those goals.