**Product Specialist**:
We pride ourselves on being travel experts. Owning the way when it comes to providing outstanding travel experiences, our brands offer the world's best polar expeditions, wildlife safaris, cultural tours, yachting adventures and more.
Our ambition is to build the world's leading experiential travel company. With over 2000 colleagues across 30 countries worldwide, we are working together to achieve this by sharing our knowledge, expertise and standard processes to stay at the forefront of the travel industry.
USTO comprises two sister brands Europe Express and YMT Vacations, each providing decades of experience in custom independent and group travel for North American travelers throughout Europe and other popular destinations around the world. Together they are a $100 million+ revenue business, a significant and strategically important part of the $1billion+ Travelopia portfolio. Established in 1990, Europe Express provides high-quality, custom travel to Europe for their North American clients.
**Location**:
This position is based in Costa Rica with the option to work partially remote.
**Position summary**:
The Product Specialist plays a key role in collaborating with the Product team throughout the product life cycle. This role supports developing and maintaining services and products for custom FIT packages and proactively communicating product knowledge. The responsibility of Product Specialist is to input and maintain all services into the reservation system, update existing package content and pricing regularly, propose new product and package ideas for distribution through multiple channels, supervise product for maximum availability, partnering with sales, and assist the specific services team with custom product requests. This role requires dedication, flexibility, and a high level of accuracy and attention to detail especially around balancing many high-priority tasks at the same time.
**Responsibilities**:
- Work collaboratively with internal support teams to provide insights and mentorship on USTO's product portfolio
- Build packages (air, rail, transfers, hotels, sightseeing) within reservation system to including upgrades and optional services
- Competitively price packages and services following company guidelines
- Own assigned product builds in Softrip, ensuring services are built accurately and that all inventory and costs are accurate
- Regularly provide sales support and product knowledge to the sales team
- Participate in projects and/or meetings as designated by management
- Prepare packages for distribution via third-party marketing channels including pricing, contract review, and communication to internal teams
- Monitor supplier contract dates to ensure packages are available for sale at least 8 months in advance
- Communicate to the Product Support Manager and internal teams the latest specials and/or changes to contracts
- Maintain vendor information and ensure that information is accurate and as per company requirements, deactivate contracts as vital by deadline dates
- Ensure the accuracy of data entry by verifying work done in reservation module and on relevant websites
- Supervise hotel allocations and request additional inventory to be contracted when vital
- Connect with vendors and sales team to fulfill requests for custom (non-contracted) product
- Analyze sales performance and make recommendations for new/discontinuation of products; packages; services
- Demonstrate independent decision-making ability while understanding the contract agreements and commercial implications, communicate appropriately to manager
- Provide excellent support and information to all co-workers
- Provide support to other Product department staff as required
- Participate in projects and/or meetings or other duties as designated by management
**Qualifications**:
- Experience in Travel and Tourism or similar field a plus
- Self-motivated, demonstrating the ability to work independently and as a team player
- Excellent communication skills, presenting information and ideas professionally with clarity & confidence, while being open, honest & objective
- Proficient in using MS Office products, specifically Excel, Outlook, and Teams. Experience with SoftTrip is preferred.
- Flexibility, demonstrating the ability to adapt to new situations and moving goals
- Proven track record to work under pressure and meet deadlines, ability to multi-task and work in a fast-paced environment
- Ability to communicate effectively. Business is conducted in English.
**Our values**:
- Care
- Collaboration
- Courage
- Passion
We believe people are happier and perform best when they are able to be their true self, and that teams with varied strengths deliver better results.
Together we will cultivate a diverse, equitable and inclusive environment, where everyone can thrive. We are committed to inspiring change through increasing awareness of, and counteracting, unconscious bias; build