About us

Offering fully catered ski holidays in the resorts of Le Grand Bornand/ La Clusaz in the Aravis and other resorts in the in the Northern French Alps, our short breaks include everything our guests need to enjoy a hassle-free ski holiday, including lift pass, airport transfer, on-site ski hire and exceptional service from our ski team. With over 20 years in the ski business, our levels of returning guests are very high, showing that we and our team must be doing something right from the very first moment someone gets in contact with us!

Expectations – yours and ours

All our staff need to be efficient, flexible and conscientious in their approach to work. To get the most out of your role you’ll need to be prepared to work hard, be enthusiastic and love working with people.

Working in the travel industry can require long and sometimes less sociable hours during peak periods, but that is balanced by a more flexible and relaxed atmosphere for the rest of the year.

All of our staff are offered a good benefits package including: a competitive monthly salary, pension options, potential trips to the French Alps to visit our own hotel and those of our partners in other resorts, discounted ski, cycling and walking holidays outside of peak season.

Job Description

We are a specialist UK Tour Operator based in Byfield (near Banbury / Daventry / Leamington) who provide activity holidays in the French Alps under the brands of Ski Weekender, Bike Weekender and Walk Weekender.

We are looking for an active, outdoor-lover with sales and/or customer services experience to join our small and friendly team.

We pride ourselves on the high level of personal service we offer to our customers across their whole experience with us – starting from their very first initial contact with us, to their departure and beyond.

Initially this will be dealing with customer enquiries and endeavouring to convert them to bookings – ensuring they experience a high level of personal service, that you propose the right options for their requirements and try to “make the sale”.

To grow the business we are looking to generate a (responsible) ‘sales’ culture to follow up and maximise the potential of every customer contact.

You will be engaged with answering questions and assisting guests effectively and efficiently with their pre-trip administration, and will need to demonstrate a care and attention to detail for all elements of their booking management.

The financial element of the role is key – ensuring all guest payments are correctly recorded, reported and managed with a robust and regular reporting and accounting process, so a high level of accuracy is vital.

You will also be managing the availability and liaising with our accommodation partners to ensure that we are maximising these relationships to create opportunities for business.

As a dynamic, developing business we are constantly looking for ways to grow and improve – your input into such product and systems improvements will be invaluable – and an analytical and questioning mind will help us drive improvements.

As an organisation, we love doing a good job with our operational delivery and providing an excellent service. Our success is built upon being highly organised and efficient, having good people and a flexible “can do” culture.

Principle Responsibilities:

• Handling incoming emails, calls and online bookings
• Responding to customer correspondence – timely and professionally
• Assist customer in choosing and booking holidays
• Use systems to make reservations, administer bookings/queries, make amendments, process payments etc.
• Liaising with accommodation partners
• Effective and close co-working with the Sales Team
• Developing and maintaining positive working relationships with the operations team, hotel partners and suppliers, all based in France
• Developing a detailed knowledge of the full range of trips – summer and winter
• Building an awareness of brand values and objectives
• Providing accurate and timely reporting

Essential Skills and Attributes:

• Competent in sales and customer service
• Effective at selling over the telephone & by email
• Enjoying the challenge of a sales conversion – and thrill of closing a sale
• Caring about the customer’s experience, both at the enquiry/booking stage and also about their overall holiday experience – customer-focused
• Ability to work independently, autonomously and be self-motivated/driven
• Being a strong advocate for the company/brand
• At ease working with numbers to work out accurate pricing, reporting, analysis
• Motivated by achieving personal targets and pursuing sales proactively
• A mature, professional attitude at all times
• High level of accuracy and keen attention to detail (including error spotting)
• Enthusiasm and a desire to learn and take on new responsibilities
• Being able to see the big picture and consider/anticipate wider implications
• Good time management, including a willingness to be flexible around time/hours etc
• Excellent communication skills (both written and verbal)
• Capacity to co-ordinate and prioritise multiple tasks
• Work calmly under pressure
• Highly computer literate, both in terms of MS Office tools and other systems
• Comfortable learning new computer systems
• Highly motivated, positive in attitude and committed to business growth
• Adaptable in approach, embraces change positively and is flexible around the needs of a business
• Desire to develop product knowledge of Bike / Walk / Ski Weekender

Highly Desirable Skills and Experience:

• A basic grasp of the French language, both written and spoken
• Experience in a sales and/or customer services environment
• Experience in the travel (or tourism/hospitality) industry

Practicalities:

This is a part-time, fixed-term contract until the end of February 2023, starting as soon as possible, based out of our office in Byfield, Northamptonshire. It is possible that the contract may be extended until March /April 2023 depending upon workloads.

This will be a UK-based contract, so a UK National Insurance Number and address is required, along with the legal right to live/work in the UK.

The is a degree of flexibility around working hours, but we are aiming for coverage as follows

Monday 0900 to 1230 – 3.5 hrs
Thursday 0900 to 1230 – 3.5 hrs
Friday 0900 to 1500 – 6 hrs
Total = 13 hours per week

We will also require a degree of flexibility during peak periods, and may look to add in 3 hours of Saturday morning cover.

The salary is £11 per hour.

How to Apply to Work for Ski Weekender

In order for us to deal with your application please send us the details requested below.

A Covering Letter

Explaining why you want to work for us, what you can bring to the job and why you think you are a good candidate for our role.

An up-to-date CV

Showing the full extent of your experience. Please include all relevant work, training, travel, interests etc.

Please email all applications to jobs@skiweekender.com

We receive many applications and are unfortunately unable to reply to them all. If we are interested in taking your application further we will be in touch by email in the first instance to arrange an initial phone / video chat. Following that we may look to arrange an interview in the UK office.