In the Fall of 2017 Katarina Lilic with Amadria Park Hotels in Croatia, sent a short note to Haydn requesting his insight on three things, she inquired,
“Can you help us with some challenges we have? 1.) Can you help us teach our Salespeople to sell for all eleven of our hotels, and not just the one they sit in? 2.) Can you help us define what “sales activity” should be for our sales teams, and how to measure that? And 3.) Can you please help our Revenue Managers limit OTA’s? To which was the answer, “Sure! We can help with all of those.”
From those simple questions this consultation grew to encompass a complete re-design of Amadria’s Park Sales organization, Marketing strategy, and the deployment of Sales and Event Management teams for all properties.
It became apparent through extensive interviews with team members at all levels, at all eleven hotels: the primary problem was a misplacement of talent and the understanding of where that talent might best be used. Salespeople were identified as salespeople and (as a revelation!) Event Managers were aligned with what they loved, planning in-house management of events, and attention to every detail.
Over the course of two years Katarina’s “challenges” were all solved, an International Sales Team for Europe was established, corporations discovered (because of that International team), that Amadria Park has some of the most elegant, functional, varied meeting venues in all of Europe. Re-deployed pro-active Sales Managers learned to find demand in new markets, Revenue Managers could more effectively (and profitably) manage peak demand, and limit OTA’s. Hotels shared demand between Sibenik, Opatija and Zagreb, like never before.
The crowning moment was the opening of Amadria Park Capital Hotel, Zagreb, a conversion of an architecturally distinctive Art Deco bank (100 years old) and now the crown jewel of Zagreb, Croatia’s gorgeous capital city. Now a very busy Hotel, and a very successful testament to Amadria Park and their seamless, elegant Adriatic hospitality heritage.