Hotel Sales Coordinator Job Description

A hotel sales office runs on paper even when the paper is digital. Every group that books needs an inquiry record, a proposal, a contract, a block of rooms, a rooming list, a billing setup and a set of event orders, and every one of those documents has a date attached. The Hotel Sales Coordinator owns that chain. Sales managers find the business and negotiate it; the coordinator makes sure what they sold is written down correctly, loaded correctly and delivered on time.

The day usually starts in the inbox. Requests arrive from meeting planners, wedding couples, sports teams, corporate travel managers and third-party sourcing firms, through email, phone, the hotel website and electronic RFP platforms such as Cvent. The coordinator logs each lead in the sales and catering system, checks dates against availability, and routes it to the sales manager who covers that segment. At some hotels the coordinator also builds the first draft of the proposal: room types and rates, meeting space, a food and beverage minimum, and the concessions the manager has approved.

Once a client signs, the work shifts to the property management system. The coordinator creates the group block, sets the cutoff date, loads the rooming list when it arrives, and writes the billing instructions that tell the front desk and accounting who pays for what. From then until arrival, the coordinator watches pickup, the count of block rooms that attendees have actually reserved, and flags a group that is running short before the attrition review date in the contract.

The job also connects sales to operations. Banquet event orders and group resumes go to banquets, the front desk, housekeeping, engineering and security, and every change from the client means a revised version. When a planner tours the hotel, the coordinator holds the rooms and meeting space to be shown, prepares the packet, and lines up who from operations will say hello.

Property type changes the mix. At a convention hotel, the coordinator may support a single segment team handling large citywide blocks and complex master accounts. At a select-service hotel with a small meeting room, one coordinator may support the only salesperson, answer leads directly and book small groups without a manager in the loop. Resorts add leisure groups, weddings and incentive trips. Brand-managed hotels work inside the brand's sales tools and reporting standards; independent hotels often leave the coordinator to set up the templates and filing rules in the first place.

What separates a strong coordinator is accuracy under deadline pressure. A wrong rate in a contract, a missed cutoff or a billing instruction that sends room charges to the wrong folio turns into a client complaint or a write-off. Coordinators who want to move up learn to read a contract the way their managers do.

Education. As a rough guide, education for this job ranges from a high school diploma to a bachelor's degree. A degree in hospitality management, business or communications helps an applicant who has not yet worked in a hotel, and it matters more for anyone planning to move into sales management. Applicants who already work at the property can compete well without one.

Experience. Treat this as an entry or early-career role; as a rough guide, zero to two years of related work is typical. The front desk, reservations, banquets, catering and events offices all feed sales coordinator jobs, because each teaches the property management system, the guest room inventory and how a group actually moves through the building. Office coordination work in another industry also transfers, especially if it involved contracts, scheduling or customer accounts.

Systems. Expect to learn three kinds of software. The property management system, such as Oracle OPERA Cloud, holds the room blocks, rooming lists and master accounts. The sales and catering system, such as Delphi or a Salesforce-based platform, holds accounts, proposals, contracts and the booking pipeline. RFP and lead platforms such as Cvent deliver the inquiries. Strong Excel skills matter for pickup tracking and the weekly reports, and clean business writing matters for every proposal and contract that leaves the office.

Skills that get noticed.

• Reading a group contract closely enough to spot a wrong date, rate or attrition term before it goes out
• Keeping a dozen open files moving without losing a deadline
• Writing to planners in a clear, polite and specific way
• Knowing the hotel's rooms and meeting space well enough to answer without checking

Credentials. None is required to start. HSMAI Academy offers a self-paced Certificate in Sales (Hospitality) built from eight required core courses, and lists hotel sales coordinators among the people it suits. The Certified Hospitality Sales Professional (CHSP) from the American Hotel & Lodging Educational Institute is a later step: O*NET's credential listing shows it requires more than two years of work experience and an exam, with renewal every five years. Coordinators who drift toward meetings and events can work toward the Certified Meeting Professional (CMP) from the Events Industry Council once they have the planning experience it asks for.

Fit. People who like structure, lists and closing loops do well here. People who mostly want to sell should say so early and ask for chances to book small groups or shadow site tours, because those are the duties that prepare a coordinator for a sales manager seat.

ONET files the Sales Coordinator title under several occupations, including Sales Representatives of Services, the group that covers hotel sales staff. For that occupation as a whole, across every industry, ONET projects average growth of 3% to 4% from 2025 to 2035 and about 115,700 openings a year on average. BLS counted 23,230 workers in the occupation in the Traveler Accommodation industry in May 2025, a figure that includes the salespeople coordinators work for. No federal series counts hotel sales coordinators on their own.

Group business is what fills a coordinator's files. CoStar's weekly U.S. hotel performance report, published Oct. 30, 2026, said that in the week of Oct. 18-24 luxury and upper-upscale group demand increased 5.5%, and that additional group room nights accounted for nearly half of the total demand increase across those two classes. A busier group calendar puts more proposals, contracts, blocks and rooming lists through the same sales office.

The ladder from this job is short and visible. One next step is a sales manager role covering one segment, such as small meetings, SMERF (social, military, educational, religious and fraternal groups), corporate accounts or associations. From there the path runs to senior sales manager, director of sales, and director of sales and marketing, or out of the property to a management company's regional sales team or a convention and visitors bureau. Coordinators who discover they prefer execution to selling have a second set of paths: catering and event sales, convention services, reservations management and revenue management all reward the same contract and systems fluency.

The knowledge travels well. A coordinator who has run blocks, master accounts and banquet paperwork in one full-service hotel can do the same work at another brand after learning its systems, and the job exists wherever hotels sell meeting space. That portability is a reason to learn the work thoroughly rather than just keeping up with it.

Lead intake, first responses and availability checks are rule-bound and repetitive, the kind of work software is built to take on, while contract review, pickup follow-up and operations handoffs depend on knowing the hotel and the client. A coordinator who wants to stay valuable should own the second list: be the person who catches the attrition clause that does not match the proposal, who knows which group always sends its rooming list late, and who keeps banquets and the front desk working from the same version of the truth.

A role that books small groups directly is closer to sales than one that only supports managers, so ask how the position is scoped and whether any incentive is tied to bookings before comparing offers.

Dear Director of Sales,

I am applying for the Sales Coordinator position at the Harborview Hotel and Conference Center. For the past two years I have worked the front desk and then the reservations office at a full-service hotel downtown, and the part of the job I keep volunteering for is group business.

In reservations I loaded rooming lists for our smaller groups, corrected room type mismatches before arrival, and set up routing so that room and tax went to the master account while incidentals stayed with the guest. When a youth soccer tournament sent three versions of its list in one week, I built a simple tracking sheet that showed our sales manager exactly which changes were still open. She started asking me to watch pickup on her other tournaments, and that is how I learned to read a block against its cutoff date.

I work daily in Opera Cloud and I have used our sales system to look up contracts and billing instructions. I am comfortable in Excel and I write clearly, which I know matters when a proposal or a revised banquet event order goes to a planner.

What draws me to Harborview is the conference center. Your calendar mixes association meetings, weddings and corporate training, and I want to learn how a sales office keeps that many contracts and event orders straight. I am also honest about where I want to go: I would like to book small groups myself someday, and I would welcome any chance to sit in on site tours and proposal reviews.

I would be glad to talk about how I can support your team. Thank you for considering my application.

Sincerely,

Jordan Ellis