Commercial Strategist

Maya Hotels | Charlotte, NC / Columbia, SC Area

Position Overview

Maya Hotels is seeking a strategic, hands-on Commercial Strategist to lead the commercial performance of a six-hotel portfolio. This position combines the responsibilities of a Regional Director of Sales and Revenue Manager, providing both strategic direction and day-to-day commercial leadership across Sales, Revenue Management, Marketing/Commercial Strategy, and hotel operations.

The Commercial Strategist will serve as a key business partner to General Managers and hotel leadership, ensuring each property has a clear commercial strategy designed to maximize revenue, occupancy, market share, ADR, RevPAR, group production, and overall profitability.

This is a hybrid field and office position. The successful candidate will spend significant time at the hotels working directly with sales teams, leadership, customers, and business partners, while also dedicating focused office time to revenue strategy, forecasting, reporting, account development, CRM management, and portfolio planning.

The position will oversee six hotels within either the Charlotte or Columbia-area portfolio, with regular travel between properties.

Key Responsibilities

Commercial & Portfolio Leadership

• Own the overall commercial strategy and performance for a portfolio of six hotels.

• Develop property-specific commercial plans based on market conditions, hotel positioning, demand patterns, competitive activity, and business mix.

• Partner closely with General Managers and hotel leadership to establish priorities, targets, and action plans.

• Conduct regular hotel visits and business reviews.

• Establish performance targets and monitor progress against revenue and sales goals.

• Identify opportunities to improve occupancy, ADR, RevPAR, market share, group production, account production, and channel mix.

• Lead regular commercial strategy meetings and provide concise written recaps, action items, and accountability.

• Review hotel collateral, online content, sales tools, and positioning to ensure consistency and accuracy.

• Monitor brand initiatives, programs, training, and commercial opportunities.

• Develop and maintain a strong culture of accountability, communication, coaching, and performance.

Sales Leadership

• Interview, hire, train, coach, and develop hotel sales team members.

• Establish sales targets and measurable performance expectations.

• Conduct regular one-on-one coaching and performance reviews.

• Review and maintain a healthy sales pipeline.

• Ensure CRM systems are accurate, current, and actionable.

• Review RFP activity, account production, prospecting, and conversion.

• Develop strategies for new account acquisition and existing account growth.

• Lead enterprise and key-account acquisition efforts across the portfolio.

• Conduct quality calls and participate in customer meetings.

• Conduct and coach effective hotel site tours.

• Plan and participate in sales blitzes and outside sales activities.

• Develop local, regional, corporate, group, extended-stay, and other demand segments as appropriate.

• Manage group wash and monitor group pickup, pace, and conversion.

• Train sales teams on billing, commissions, RFPs, CRM, and related processes.

• Approve sales team PTO and expense reports.

• Work with hotel teams to develop and execute account-specific strategies.

• Maintain strong relationships with key customers, CVBs, corporate accounts, meeting planners, and business partners.

Revenue Management & Pricing Strategy

• Provide daily oversight of portfolio rate strategy.

• Monitor pricing, demand, occupancy, pickup, pace, and inventory across all assigned hotels.

• Develop and execute yield strategies based on demand, market conditions, compression, and hotel positioning.

• Review upcoming high-demand dates, need dates, holidays, citywide events, and market opportunities.

• Monitor competitive hotel pricing and market conditions.

• Evaluate channel mix and distribution strategy.

• Monitor out-of-order inventory and its impact on available rooms and revenue opportunities.

• Review inventory restrictions, rate strategies, and availability to ensure alignment with commercial objectives.

• Conduct regular STR reviews and identify opportunities and risks.

• Review revenue-management reports and provide clear action items to hotel leadership.

• Conduct regular 30/60/90-day revenue strategy reviews.

• Review and maintain hotel content and pricing accuracy across applicable channels.

• Partner with hotel leadership to ensure pricing and sales strategies are aligned.

• Participate in and lead revenue strategy discussions with ownership and C-suite leadership as appropriate.

Forecasting, Budgeting & Business Planning

• Confirm bi-weekly forecasting for the next three months and maintain an accurate forward-looking commercial outlook.

• Participate in annual budgeting and ongoing budget management.

• Develop rolling budget and forecast plans.

• Review pace, pickup, demand, and production against budget and forecast.

• Conduct quarterly portfolio reviews.

• Develop quarterly cluster strategies for:

  • Top accounts

  • New account acquisition

  • Group business

  • Channel mix

  • Revenue opportunities

  • Need dates

  • High-demand periods

• Present commercial performance, opportunities, risks, and action plans to C-suite leadership.

• Develop quarterly commercial planning outputs and follow-up plans.

Technology, Distribution & Systems

The Commercial Strategist is expected to develop working mastery of the technology and commercial platforms used throughout the Maya Hotels portfolio.

Revenue & Sales Systems

Depending on assigned portfolio and brands:

Marriott

• ACRS

• One Yield

• MarRFP

• CiTY

• MHub

• Product Catalog

IHG

• Hotel Key

• N2

• IHG RFP

• Meeting Broker

• IHG Reporting

• Hotel Content

Hilton

• OnQ R&I

• PEP

• OnQ Solicitation

• Meeting Broker

• HRH

• OnQ PIM

Commercial Technology

Working knowledge of:

• Lighthouse

• Kalibri

• STR

• TripleSeat

• Meeting Broker

• Copper

• Otelier

• Google

• AI-based commercial tools

• Canva

Distribution & Sales Platforms

Working knowledge of:

• Expedia

• Booking.com

• RocketStay

• TA Connections

• Cvent

• EventConnect

• HotelPlanner

• EventPipe

• Hotel Engine

• Navan

• Brand sales portals

• CVB portals

The Commercial Strategist will be expected to complete required brand pricing-system training and develop proficiency across applicable systems.

Leadership & Hotel Partnership

This role requires a strong balance of strategic thinking and hands-on execution.

The Commercial Strategist will:

• Work directly with General Managers and hotel leadership.

• Train hotel teams on commercial strategy and revenue principles.

• Translate reports and data into practical hotel-level action.

• Hold teams accountable for agreed-upon commercial initiatives.

• Identify performance gaps and develop corrective action plans.

• Build strong relationships with hotel sales teams and operations leaders.

• Support hotel teams during high-demand periods and major sales opportunities.

• Bring market intelligence and competitive information back to the portfolio.

• Ensure communication between Sales, Revenue Management, Operations, and leadership is consistent and actionable.

Field & Office Expectations

This is a field-based commercial leadership position with dedicated office and strategy time. The exact schedule will flex based on hotel needs, market conditions, travel requirements, and business priorities.

Quarterly Commercial Planning

Approximately once per quarter, the fifth week of the month will be utilized for broader portfolio planning, including:

• Quarterly commercial planning

• Portfolio/team performance review

• Rolling budget planning

• Forecasting and +3 planning

• Strategic account review

• Commercial opportunities and risks

• C-suite presentation and alignment

• Portfolio priorities for the upcoming quarter

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years of progressive hotel sales, revenue management, commercial strategy, or hotel leadership experience.

• Previous experience in a Director of Sales, Regional Sales, Revenue Manager, Regional Revenue, Commercial Strategy, or comparable hotel leadership role.

• Strong understanding of both hotel sales and revenue management.

• Experience managing or influencing multiple hotels is strongly preferred.

• Strong knowledge of hotel pricing, forecasting, inventory management, group strategy, and market segmentation.

• Proven ability to coach and develop sales professionals.

• Strong analytical and financial skills.

• Experience interpreting STR and other hotel performance reports.

• Strong CRM and pipeline-management skills.

• Ability to analyze data and turn it into clear, actionable strategies.

• Strong presentation, communication, and organizational skills.

• Ability to work independently while maintaining strong communication with hotel and corporate leadership.

• Willingness and ability to travel regularly between assigned hotels.

• Valid driver's license and reliable transportation.

Ideal Candidate

The ideal candidate is a commercially minded hotel leader who understands both the numbers and the people behind the numbers.

You are comfortable moving between a revenue strategy meeting, a hotel sales office, a customer site visit, a forecast, and a coaching conversation. You understand that revenue management and sales cannot operate independently and that the strongest commercial results come from aligning pricing, demand, sales activity, account strategy, distribution, and hotel operations.

You are highly organized, data-driven, proactive, and comfortable holding teams accountable while also developing the people around you.

Most importantly, you are able to look at six hotels as one commercial portfolio while still understanding the unique needs and opportunities of each individual property.

Location & Travel

Primary market: Charlotte, NC or Columbia, SC area

Portfolio: Six assigned Maya Hotels properties

Work arrangement: Hybrid field and office

Travel: Regular travel between assigned hotels, customer locations, and business-development activities is required.

What Success Looks Like

Success in this role means that each hotel has:

• A clear commercial strategy

• Accurate and actionable forecasts

• Effective pricing and inventory strategies

• A healthy sales pipeline

• Strong CRM discipline

• Defined target accounts

• Active prospecting and account development

• Effective group and RFP management

• Consistent sales coaching and development

• Clear high-demand and need-date strategies

• Strong communication between Sales, Revenue, and Operations

• Measurable progress against budget and commercial targets

The Commercial Strategist is ultimately responsible for bringing these disciplines together to drive profitable, sustainable commercial performance across the six-hotel portfolio.