Category Manager

Thrillophilia.com; Jaipur; On-site; INR 1,500,000 - 2,800,000; Full time

Job summary

Thrillophilia is seeking a Category Manager to own a destination or travel category end-to-end, building it like an independent business. This role goes beyond procurement or operations, driving product development, pricing, supplier networks, and customer experience.

You will partner with marketing, sales, and operations to grow revenue and margins, define strategy, negotiate with suppliers, create compelling itineraries, and measure performance with dashboards.

Qualifications

• 6–12 years of experience in category management, business ownership, travel product management, or a related role.
• Experience in travel, consumer internet, e-commerce, marketplaces, hospitality, or a high-growth business.
• Strong commercial understanding of revenue, margins, pricing, and profitability.
• Ability to analyse market demand and translate insights into products and business decisions.

Responsibilities

• Own category revenue, gross margins, conversion, and profitability.
• Identify demand opportunities based on seasonality, trends, visa changes, and competition.
• Negotiate rates, terms, and commercial agreements with suppliers.
• Develop differentiated itineraries and travel products.
• Collaborate with marketing, sales, product, and operations to drive growth.

Skills

Category management

P&L management

Travel product management

Negotiation

Stakeholder management

Data analysis

Education

MBA

Job description

Thrillophilia is one of India’s leading experiential travel platforms, helping millions of travellers discover and book curated holidays and experiences across India and international destinations.

We are building destination-led travel businesses where each category is managed with clear ownership across product, pricing, suppliers, marketing, sales, customer experience, revenue, and profitability.

About the Role

We are looking for a Category Manager who can take complete ownership of a destination or travel category and build it like an independent business.

This is not a procurement-only or operations-only role.

You will be responsible for identifying market opportunities, creating differentiated products, building the right supplier ecosystem, improving pricing and margins, enabling sales, working with marketing, and driving customer satisfaction.

A strong Category Manager should be able to say:

“This destination is my business. Revenue, margins, product quality, suppliers, conversion, customer experience, and growth are all my responsibility.”

What You Will Own

Category Strategy

• Build the growth strategy for an assigned destination or travel category.
• Identify demand opportunities based on seasonality, customer trends, visa changes, airline connectivity, search demand, and competitor activity.
• Define the right customer segments, product mix, pricing strategy, and growth priorities.
• Create quarterly and annual plans for revenue, margins, and market share.

Product Development

• Build differentiated itineraries and travel products based on customer demand.
• Continuously improve existing packages based on conversion, customer feedback, and market trends.
• Create clear product USPs that make the category easier to sell and harder to replicate.
• Ensure the product portfolio serves different customer segments, budgets, and travel styles.

Supplier and Commercial Management

• Identify, onboard, and manage high-quality suppliers, hotels, DMCs, transport partners, and experience providers.
• Negotiate competitive rates, payment terms, service standards, and commercial agreements.
• Build alternate supplier options to reduce dependency and operational risk.
• Improve contribution margins without compromising customer experience.

Revenue and Profitability

• Own category-level revenue, gross margins, conversion, and profitability.
• Monitor demand, pricing, sales performance, cancellations, refunds, and operational costs.
• Take corrective action when performance drops.
• Build plans to scale successful products and discontinue weak ones.
• Work closely with the sales team to improve product understanding and conversion.
• Create destination training, sales playbooks, objection-handling guides, and product comparison tools.
• Analyse sales calls and customer objections to improve products and communication.
• Ensure the sales team has the right products, pricing, and information to close effectively.
• Partner with Performance Marketing, Content, SEO, CRM, and Brand teams.
• Identify high-potential campaigns, destinations, customer segments, and seasonal opportunities.
• Share customer insights, product USPs, pricing hooks, and market intelligence with marketing teams.
• Measure whether campaigns are generating the right demand and quality of customers.

Customer Experience

• Track customer feedback, NPS, complaints, cancellations, and service failures.
• Work with Operations and Customer Support to improve the end-to-end travel experience.
• Identify recurring issues and fix them at the product or supplier level.
• Ensure category growth does not come at the cost of quality.

What We Are Looking For

• 6–12 years of experience in category management, business ownership, travel product management, P&L management, or a related role.
• Experience in travel, consumer internet, e-commerce, marketplaces, hospitality, or a high-growth business.
• Strong commercial understanding of revenue, margins, pricing, and profitability.
• Ability to analyse market demand and translate insights into products and business decisions.
• Strong negotiation and supplier-management skills.
• High ownership and comfort working across multiple teams.
• Ability to operate in a fast-paced, target-oriented environment.
• Strong problem-solving, communication, and stakeholder-management skills.
• Comfort working with data, dashboards, and performance metrics.

Preferred Background

• Experience owning a destination, category, geography, or business line.
• Experience in outbound or domestic holiday packages.
• Exposure to sales-led or high-consideration customer journeys.
• Experience managing both product and commercial outcomes.
• MBA or equivalent business education is an advantage, but not mandatory.

Key Performance Indicators

• Category revenue
• Contribution margin and profitability
• Booking conversion
• Product performance
• Customer satisfaction and NPS
• Cancellation and refund rates
• Market share growth

What Success Looks Like

Within the first 6 months, you should be able to:

• Build a clear understanding of the assigned destination or category.
• Identify the biggest gaps in product, pricing, suppliers, and conversion.
• Create a structured category growth plan.
• Improve product quality, supplier competitiveness, and sales readiness.
• Establish clear performance dashboards and operating reviews.

Over time, you should build and scale the category into a significant, profitable business with strong customer trust and clear market differentiation.

Why Join Thrillophilia?

• Own a business, not just a function.
• Work directly on revenue, margins, products, suppliers, sales, and customer experience.
• Build destinations and categories at meaningful scale.
• Work closely with senior leaders across business, marketing, sales, product, and operations.
• Get the opportunity to grow into a Category Head, Business Head, or P&L leader.

We are looking for someone who thinks like a founder, acts like an operator, and takes complete responsibility for outcomes.