Hospitality
Sales and Catering Manager
Last updated
Sales and Catering Managers sell and manage meeting, event, and group catering business for hotels—generating revenue through proactive sales while also overseeing the execution of booked events from contract through final billing. The role combines the relationship-building of a sales position with the operational accountability of an event manager.
Role at a glance
- Typical education
- Bachelor's degree in hospitality management, event management, or business preferred
- Typical experience
- 2-5 years
- Key certifications
- Certified Meeting Professional (CMP), Certified Hospitality Sales Professional (CHSP), ServSafe Food Safety Manager
- Top employer types
- Full-service hotels, resorts, banquet halls, event venues
- Growth outlook
- Strong recovery and high demand due to talent shortages and rebounding corporate/social event volumes
- AI impact (through 2030)
- Largely unaffected; while AI may assist with RFP processing and BEO automation, the role relies on physical venue tours, complex human negotiation, and on-site event execution.
Duties and responsibilities
- Generate new catering and group meeting revenue through proactive outbound sales calls, referrals, and inquiry conversion
- Conduct client meetings, property tours, menu tastings, and proposal presentations for prospective events
- Negotiate event contracts including catering minimums, room rental rates, concessions, attrition terms, and cancellation policies
- Create and manage Banquet Event Orders (BEOs) for all contracted events, distributing to operating departments within required lead times
- Coordinate event details between clients and hotel operations teams—banquets, kitchen, AV, engineering, and guest rooms
- Manage the complete event lifecycle: contract execution, deposit collection, pre-event planning, event-day oversight, and post-event billing
- Respond to social, corporate, non-profit, and association catering inquiries from multiple platforms within 24-hour turnaround standards
- Maintain CRM and catering system records with complete booking details, client contact history, and revenue forecasts
- Meet monthly and quarterly revenue goals for catering, meeting room rental, and associated group room blocks
- Support upsell opportunities through menu upgrades, enhanced AV packages, specialty linen, and floral and décor add-ons
Overview
A Sales and Catering Manager occupies the intersection of two disciplines: selling and executing. Unlike a pure Sales Manager who hands off events after booking, or a pure Banquet Manager who receives events others have sold, a Sales and Catering Manager typically owns both ends—generating the revenue and ensuring the event delivers the experience that prompted the client to book in the first place.
The sales cycle for a catering account begins with an inquiry—a corporate meeting planner looking for a 60-person off-site, a couple inquiring about wedding reception capacity, a non-profit planning its annual gala. Converting that inquiry into a signed contract involves a property tour, a custom proposal, menu consultation, and a negotiation that reaches agreement on rates, minimums, and contract terms. Managers who convert at higher rates and at higher average revenue per event are the ones who advance.
Once the contract is signed, the operational work begins. The manager creates the BEO, which communicates every event detail to the departments executing it. An accurate BEO is the difference between a 200-person dinner that runs smoothly and one where the kitchen prepared the wrong count or the AV team didn't know about the video requirements. The BEO is the manager's commitment to both the client and the hotel's operations team.
Event day is where the work becomes visible. Whether the manager is on-site as the primary client contact or has handed off to a banquet supervisor, the event's execution reflects directly on the manager's preparation and communication. Experienced catering managers know which details are most likely to go wrong on event day—audio visual, last-minute count changes, special dietary requests—and have pre-confirmed those items with the relevant departments before the event begins.
Post-event billing is the final step: matching actuals against the contract, applying attrition if applicable, and ensuring the client's folio is accurate before presenting the final bill. How well this is handled affects whether the client returns.
Qualifications
Education:
- Bachelor's degree in hospitality management, event management, or business (preferred by most full-service hotel companies)
- Internal promotion from Sales and Catering Coordinator is common and often preferred over external hiring
Experience:
- 2–5 years in hotel catering, events, or group sales
- Demonstrated ability to manage the full event lifecycle from inquiry through post-event billing
- Measurable revenue production track record is the primary hiring criterion
Certifications:
- Certified Meeting Professional (CMP) — the industry standard credential for event professionals
- Certified Hospitality Sales Professional (CHSP) from AHLEI
- ServSafe Food Safety Manager certification (required at most properties)
- Responsible Beverage Service certification
Technical proficiency:
- Catering management systems: Delphi FX, Ungerboeck/Momentus, Amadeus Sales & Catering
- RFP platforms: Cvent, Lanyon/Inntopia, WeddingWire/The Knot for social events
- PMS integration for group billing and rooming list management (Opera, Infor)
- Revenue reporting and pipeline management within CRM systems
Sales competencies:
- Consultative selling for complex, multi-element events
- Contract negotiation with attrition, cancellation, and F&B minimum terms
- Menu and pricing proposal construction for multiple event types
- Objection handling around rate, availability, and competing venues
Operational knowledge:
- BEO preparation and distribution workflow
- Kitchen and banquet service capacity planning
- AV, décor, and specialty vendor coordination
- Post-event billing reconciliation and attrition calculation
Career outlook
Catering and event sales management is one of the more durable disciplines in hotel management. Events—corporate meetings, weddings, galas, conferences—require venues, and hotels remain the primary venue category for most event types. The sales and coordination function is embedded in how the industry operates and is not significantly threatened by automation.
The market for experienced Sales and Catering Managers is competitive in 2025–2026. Properties that cut sales and catering staff during the pandemic are rebuilding, and the experienced talent pool is smaller than demand warrants. This shortage has driven salaries and commission potential upward, and hotels are competing more aggressively for people who can produce results.
The events industry's own recovery has been strong. Corporate meetings and off-sites returned ahead of projections. Association conferences, which were among the last to return, came back at scale in 2023–2024 with strong booking pipelines extending several years. Wedding and social event volume has been consistently above pre-pandemic levels, driven in part by postponed celebrations.
Career progression in catering sales management is well-defined. Senior Catering Sales Manager, Catering Director, and Director of Sales and Marketing are the natural next levels. A Director of Catering at a full-service resort property can earn $95,000–$140,000 in total compensation. Some experienced catering managers transition to corporate event planning roles on the client side, where their event execution knowledge is valued in structuring contracts with hotels.
For professionals who enjoy the combination of relationship selling and event management, this is one of the most financially rewarding and creatively satisfying roles in hospitality. No two events are the same, and the client satisfaction from a well-executed event is immediate and tangible.
Sample cover letter
Dear Hiring Manager,
I'm applying for the Sales and Catering Manager position at [Hotel]. I've been a Catering Sales Coordinator at [Property] for two and a half years, and for the past eight months I've been managing a small portfolio of accounts independently while our department was short-staffed after a departure.
In that period I booked $340,000 in catering revenue across 27 events—corporate quarterly meetings, a non-profit gala, two rehearsal dinners, and several corporate lunch programs. I created BEOs for all of them, coordinated with the kitchen and banquet team, and was on-site as the client contact for six of the larger events. The experience confirmed that I'm ready for the full manager role.
My strongest area is the contract stage. I've learned that clients who understand exactly what they're committing to—the attrition clause, the cancellation timeline, the F&B minimum and how it's calculated—are easier to work with when anything comes up later. I've stopped thinking of contract clarity as a risk management exercise and started thinking of it as a trust-building one, because clients who feel informed upfront become repeat clients.
I have my CMP certification and I'm proficient in Delphi FX and Cvent. I'm looking for a property with more social event volume than my current hotel offers—weddings and galas in particular—because I want to develop that expertise.
[Hotel]'s event program and your reputation in the [market] wedding market are exactly the environment I'm looking for.
[Your Name]
Frequently asked questions
- What types of events does a Sales and Catering Manager typically handle?
- The event mix varies by property type. Hotels in office districts handle primarily corporate meetings, off-sites, and product launches. Resort properties handle more weddings, social galas, and incentive retreats. Convention hotels focus on association conferences, citywide events, and large corporate meetings with multi-day food and beverage programs. Most Sales and Catering Managers at mid-size hotels handle all of these event types, with specialization becoming more common at larger properties.
- What is catering attrition and why do contracts include it?
- Attrition clauses protect the hotel from financial loss when a client commits to a minimum food and beverage spend or room block and then delivers less. A contract might require 80% of the stated catering minimum—if the client comes in at 70%, the attrition clause specifies what they owe the difference on. Understanding attrition from both the client's perspective (reasonable protection for their planning uncertainty) and the hotel's perspective (cost coverage for staffing and prep committed against the contracted number) is a core skill for catering sales negotiations.
- How does wedding sales differ from corporate catering sales?
- Wedding sales involves longer sales cycles (couples often book 12–24 months in advance), more emotional decision-making, and higher per-event revenue on the social side of the menu and décor. Corporate catering involves faster decision timelines, more standardized requirements, and repeat business from the same accounts. Wedding clients require more personal consultation time; corporate clients prioritize reliability and contract clarity. Many properties staff separate wedding coordinators and corporate catering managers at higher volumes.
- Is the Sales and Catering Manager present during events?
- Expectations vary by property. Some hotels expect the Sales and Catering Manager to be on-site as the primary client contact for events they sold, especially for high-value or complex events. Others transfer day-of management to a Banquet Manager or Event Manager after the BEO is finalized. Managers who are present during events build stronger client relationships and get immediate feedback on execution quality—which informs future proposals.
- How is AI or digital booking technology affecting catering sales?
- AI-assisted RFP platforms are routing more initial inquiries to hotels based on availability and fit scoring, which has increased inbound inquiry volume but compressed response time expectations. Some hotels are piloting AI-drafted proposal generation to speed turnaround on standard event types. Relationship-based sales—where a client chooses a hotel because they trust the manager they work with—remains dominant for high-value events and is where experienced catering managers differentiate themselves from technology-assisted competitors.
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