Business Development Specialist

TourAxis; Wes-Kaap; Hybrid; ZAR 350,000 - 520,000; Full time

Job summary

Travel Chasers is launching a brand-new outbound sales department for the South African market. As Business Developer / B2B Sales Specialist in Cape Town, you will build the SA trade network of agents and OTAs from scratch, shaping onboarding, resources, and how this channel scales.

You’ll identify and sign partners, manage relationships, help set pricing input, and report on performance to guide strategy. This is a founding-team role with autonomy, high impact, and exposure to senior leadership

Qualifications

• Proven experience in B2B sales within travel is required.
• Minimum 5 years in related roles.
• Existing network of SA travel agents/OTAs is a strong advantage.
• Able to work with autonomy and ambiguity in a start-up like department.
• Strong negotiation and communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Identify and sign up SA travel agents, OTAs, and trade partners.
• Build and manage relationships, serving as primary contact into Travel Chasers.
• Design and implement onboarding, commissions, lead qualification processes.
• Collaborate with GM/Country Manager to inform pricing and campaigns.
• Track trade partner performance and inform growth strategy.
• Represent Travel Chasers at SA trade events and forums.

Skills

B2B sales

Trade relations

Relationship management

Negotiation

Business development

Autonomy

Strategic thinking

Job description

Business Developer / B2B Sales Specialist

Expat Explore — South Africa Outbound Sales Department

Department

South Africa Outbound Sales (New Department)

Reports to

GM / Country Manager, Southern Africa

Location

Cape Town, South Africa (hybrid, 2-3 days in office per week)

Employment type

Full-time, permanent

About the role

Travel Chasers (previously known as Expat Explore) is launching a brand new outbound sales department dedicated to the South African source market — our first ever dedicated push to grow South African travellers on our European (& other) scheduled group tours. This is a founding-team opportunity: you won't be stepping into an established department with fixed processes, you'll be helping build one from the ground up, testing new ideas, and shaping how this side of the business runs. If you enjoy the energy of a start-up-style project inside an established, respected travel brand — where your input directly shapes strategy, not just execution — this is that opportunity.

As our first B2B/trade hire in this new department, you'll be the person who builds our South African travel agent and OTA network of resellers essentially from scratch. This is a role for someone who already knows the local trade landscape and relishes the challenge of opening doors, not just maintaining relationships that already exist. You'll also directly shape the systems and processes this whole department runs on for years to come — including your input in how we onboard SA agents, which resources we provide them with, and how we scale this channel.

What you'll do

• Identify, approach, and sign up South African travel agents, OTAs, and other trade partners to sell our European and other seat-in-coach group tour products.
• Build and manage relationships with trade partners, acting as their main point of contact into Travel Chasers.
• Help design and implement the systems and processes that will underpin this channel going forward — agent onboarding, commission structures (in consultation with our global Head of Sales), lead qualification, reporting — with real ownership over how these evolve.
• Work closely with the GM or Country Manager and wider outbound team to feed market intelligence into pricing, product, and campaign decisions.
• Track and report on trade partnership performance, using early data to help shape the department's growth strategy.
• Represent Travel Chasers at relevant trade events, agent forums, and industry functions in South Africa.

What we're looking for

• Proven experience in B2B sales, business development, or trade relations within the travel industry - minimum 5 years.
• An existing network of South African travel agent and/or OTA contacts is a strong advantage.
• Comfortable operating with a high degree of autonomy and ambiguity — this department is being built, not inherited.
• A builder's mindset: someone energised by creating processes and systems, not just working within existing ones.
• Strong relationship management, negotiation, and communication skills.
• Self-motivated, commercially-focussed, and comfortable being measured against goals in a largely untapped market with ambitious targets & an experimental environment.

Why this role

• Be a founding member of a new department with real influence over its direction and how it's built.
• Direct line of sight and access to the GM / Country Manager and some members of senior leadership — your ideas will be heard and tested, not filtered through layers of processes.
• The chance to build a trade network and a commercial function that barely exists yet for this market — genuinely rare ownership.
• Join an established, respected international tour operator group with offices in London & Cape Town, over 21 yrs of experience, and approx. 200 staff, while getting the energy, pace, and experimentation of a start-up-style project.