Ian Thomas has been appointed as Commercial Director for QHotels, the collection of 21 conference hotels across the UK.
Thomas has been charged with driving commercial growth across all revenue, sales and marketing teams with a focus on conference and events, and evolving channels to market.
Thomas said: “It’s an exciting time to join QHotels. The group has a strong reputation for its first-class conference and events offering. My role will be to grow this further, consolidating the reputation that we have and driving new areas of the business not previously considered.”
QHotels recently won BDRC Continental awards for enquiry handling (No1. Group) and conference service delivery (VenueVerdict No1. Large Group).
“QHotels will concentrate and on areas where we believe there may be earlier shoots of economic recovery,” says Thomas. “For example the training marketing where return on investment is so critical or the financial services market, tailoring our offering to exactly what they want. That is what really attracted me to this exciting role; QHotels is extremely good at making decisions and implementing them very quickly. We react to and act on all customer feedback.”
Thomas says that QHotels is also investing heavily in customer service, both on the web, and in its Central Bookings Service. “We must excel at every customer touch point to set ourselves apart from the competition in an ever increasingly commoditised market place in which it is difficult to differentiate,” he adds.
Thomas will be responsible for a commercial team of over 150 people covering sales, marketing, revenue and central reservations and events.
“2012 will be a year for honing our young talent and finding the stars of the future,” adds Thomas. “The current pressures on the under 25’s market to find employment means that there are some very good candidates available that we can develop and mould into future leaders. Indeed we are just about to start on our third intake of event team graduates and I look forward to watching them develop and grow.”
Thomas has more than 20 years commercial sales and marketing experience, having started his career working for Kraft Foods. Eleven years later he made his move into hospitality when he was approached by Moat House Hotels to set up a National Account team. Thomas then went on to become Sales Director for Thistle & Guoman hotels, and later at Village Hotels.
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