About This Role
This Catering Manager role is responsible for preparing all event documentation and coordinating with group sales, hotel departments, and customers to ensure consistent, high-level service throughout pre-event, event, and post-event phases of hotel events. The manager ensures all hotel events have a seamless turnover from sales to service and back to sales, and establishes opportunities to maximize revenue by upselling and offering enhancements to create outstanding events.
Responsibilities
- Plan, organize, and manage the in-house details for all group bookings (i.e., guest rooms, menus, set-up, etc.)
- Participate in negotiating meetings/functions, rooms, rates, and all related requirements
- Ensure maximization of room and meeting space, revenues, and profits while delivering a quality product
- Report and critique all activities to the Director of Sales
- Enliven the Westmont Standards within the Department and the hotel
- Support all Corporate and hotel initiatives as needed
- Plan, upsell, and detail the program with the client including verification and modification of space requirements, times, equipment, menus, themes/decorations, etc.
- Prepare the appropriate resumes and paperwork to ensure quality service
- Monitor Groups Room Requirements to ensure all attendees receive commitments made in the hotels’ agreements
- Manage function details and related activities to ensure that program requirements are satisfied
- Anticipate and handle customer complaints and/or problems to ensure quality product delivery, customer satisfaction, and repeat business
- Improve hotel services’ products through the development of new sales tools, menus, themes, and decorations, the analysis of the strengths and weakness of our competitions product, and analysis, understanding, and satisfaction of our customers’ needs
- Monitor and control individual event budgets and details to maximize revenues and minimize expenses while ensuring delivery of a quality product
- Coordinate and communicate verbally and in writing with customers (internal and external) regarding event details
- Follow up with customers post-event
- Act as liaison between hotel and customer throughout the event process (pre-event, event, post-event)
- Make presence known to customer at all times during this process
- Be available to solve problems and/or suggest alternatives to previous arrangements
- Oversee customer experiences from file turnover through the post-event phase until turnover back to sales
- Proactively identify operational challenges associated with groups and work with the hotel staff and customer to solve these challenges and/or develop alternative solutions
- Lead pre-event and post-event meetings for assigned groups