Business Development Manager

About The World’s Best The World’s Best is an independent travel and lifestyle publication focused on exceptional hotels and destinations, with annual rankings spanning hotels, cruises and restaurants. Our work encompasses ratings, rankings and editorial coverage across hospitality, dining, travel and destinations. We serve a long-term audience of 1,000,000+, alongside approximately 400,000 combined social followers since 2014.

About the role
We are seeking an experienced Business Development Manager to develop commercial relationships across hospitality and real estate, with particular emphasis on luxury hotels, resorts, branded residences and premium property developments. This role suits a commercially driven professional with an established network of PR agencies, communications leaders and marketing decision-makers. You will identify prospective clients, understand their business objectives and develop relevant partnership proposals, taking opportunities from initial introduction through negotiation and ongoing account development. Candidates may come from hospitality, property, publishing, media sales or a specialist PR and communications agency.

Key responsibilities
• Identify and develop new business opportunities with hotel groups, independent properties, real estate developers, branded residences and their appointed agencies.
• Build relationships with directors of marketing and communications, PR leaders, commercial directors, owners and other relevant decision-makers.
• Develop a consistent pipeline through your existing network, targeted outreach, referrals and industry relationships.
• Understand prospective clients’ objectives, audiences, launch plans and budgets, translating these into well-defined commercial proposals.
• Develop proposals for advertising, clearly identified sponsored content and other commercial partnerships, subject to agreed scope and internal approval.
• Lead presentations, commercial discussions and negotiations through to agreement.
• Work with internal teams to ensure agreed deliverables are clear, achievable and accurately communicated.
• Maintain reliable records of opportunities, proposals, forecasts and account activity.
• Develop repeat business through attentive account management and relevant follow-up.
• Maintain a clear distinction between commercial partnerships and independent editorial coverage, ratings and rankings.
• Experience and qualifications
• At least five years of relevant industry experience in hospitality, real estate, media, publishing, PR or commercial partnerships.
• An established professional network among hospitality or property PR teams, marketing and communications departments, and specialist agencies.
• A proven record of winning new business, negotiating agreements and developing lasting client relationships.
• Experience working with luxury or premium brands and an understanding of their positioning and communications expectations.
• Strong proposal writing, presentation and negotiation skills.
• Confidence engaging senior stakeholders and managing a sales process independently.
• An organised, proactive approach to prospecting, pipeline management and follow-through.
• Excellent professional English; additional languages are an advantage. What success looks like A qualified commercial pipeline, new client agreements, repeat partnerships and strong relationships with relevant brands and agencies. Commercial activity must respect the independence of our editorial coverage, ratings and rankings.