Vacation.com has completed a reorganization of its sales team, doing away with business-development managers and adding two new positions that will separately focus on recruitment and account-development.
Under the new structure, six previous business-development managers and two new hires will become four account-development managers and four sales managers to V-com’s outside-sales team.
The account-development managers will focus on helping member agencies maximize their membership benefits and supplier sales, V-com said, while the sales managers will be dedicated to attracting new members.
Vacation.com President John Lovell said that in the past, V-com’s business-development managers were charged with recruiting, training members on new programs and helping them grow sales.
“Now, thanks to the new structure, our newly created account-development managers are focused on one thing and one thing only: making our members more profitable,” said Lovell. “This was a necessary step to take as Vacation.com’s membership continues to expand.”
The consortium said it added more than 300 travel agencies in 2011 through traditional recruitment, in addition to over 100 cruise-focused travel agencies through the acquisition of Cruise Shoppes.
“Now that we have dedicated sales managers onboard, I expect Vacation.com to grow at an unprecedented rate, which will bring more clout and success to all of our member agencies,” stated Karin Viera, V-com’s vice president of sales.
V-com said the account-development managers and sales managers would be strategically based across the United States in the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest and West, and would be supported by two new inside-sales personnel and a newly appointed director of sales, Chris Blandamer, who has been with the consortium since 2007 and previously held the position of manager of sales planning and analysis.
Jared Braunstein remains with V-com as vice president of strategic accounts and initiatives.
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