Reservations & Operations Manager

Craven Cottage CC; Cape Town; Hybrid; ZAR 1,500,000 - 2,300,000; Full time

Job summary

Craven Cottage CC in Cape Town seeks a senior Reservations, Sales & Operations leader to manage luxury inbound itineraries across Southern and East Africa. You will own enquiry-to-booking processes, review quotations, and guide a high-performing team of Journey Designers.

The role emphasizes rates, product, performance and collaboration with North American travel advisors; TourPlan experience is advantageous. Some flexibility in office location is offered.

Qualifications

• 10–15+ years in luxury inbound DMC reservations.
• Extensive knowledge of Southern and East Africa destinations.
• Experience designing and costing multi-country itineraries.
• Strong attention to detail and profitability.
• Experience with North American luxury travel advisors.
• Excellent written and verbal communication.
• Proven ability to lead a reservations team.
• TourPlan experience would be a significant advantage.

Responsibilities

• Take ownership of enquiries from receipt through to booking confirmation or closure.
• Lead communication with travel advisor partners and ensure timely correspondence.
• Manage reservations pipelines, quotations turnaround times and conversions.
• Oversee Operations Lead and Journey Administration team.
• Ensure seamless handovers from reservations to operations and high guest service.
• Guide Journey Designers in creating luxury itineraries across Southern and East Africa.

Skills

Reservation management

Team leadership

Client communication

Costing & margins

Process improvement

Tools

TourPlan

Job description

Duties

Reservations & Sales Management

• Take ownership of enquiries from receipt through to booking confirmation or closure.
• Allocate enquiries, monitor workloads and ensure quotations meet required turnaround times.
• Personally review and approve all quotations and costings before submission to agents, checking accuracy, margins, product selection and completeness.
• Lead communication with travel advisor partners, ensuring proactive, professional and timely correspondence.
• Manage follow-ups, itinerary revisions and deadlines to maximise booking conversions.
• Guide Journey Designers in creating creative, well-routed and commercially sound luxury itineraries across Southern and East Africa.

Team Leadership & Operations

• Manage, mentor and develop five Journey Designers, driving productivity, accountability and performance.
• Manage the Operations Lead and oversee the Concierge and Journey Administration team.
• Ensure seamless handovers from reservations to operations and consistently high standards of guest service.
• Resolve reservations challenges, agent concerns, operational issues and staff matters independently, escalating where appropriate.
• Take ownership of daily departmental management, enabling the owner to focus on business growth.

Rates, Product & Performance

• Oversee the TourPlan Rates & Product function, ensuring accurate rates, competitive supplier pricing and appropriate product selection.
• Improve workflows and strengthen quality control throughout the reservations process.
• Monitor quotation turnaround times, costing errors, conversion rates and team performance.

Requirements

• Ideally 10–15+ years’ experience within the luxury inbound DMC industry, including significant senior reservations management experience.
• Extensive firsthand destination and product knowledge across Southern and East Africa.
• Proven experience designing, costing and managing complex, high-end, multi-country African itineraries.
• Exceptional attention to detail and a strong understanding of costing, margins and profitability.
• Significant experience working directly with North American luxury travel advisors, ideally within Virtuoso, Serandipians or similar networks.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the confidence to manage key agent relationships and resolve challenges independently.
• Proven ability to manage reservations pipelines, maintain quotation turnaround times and improve conversions.
• Established experience leading, motivating and developing a high-performing reservations team.
• TourPlan experience would be a significant advantage.

Working Arrangements

• Office-based in Cape Town or Heidelberg, Gauteng.
• Some flexibility may be considered for the right candidate.