Kat Bowhay Email & Phone Number

Trowbridge, Gb

Shepton Mallet, England, Ba4 4Pr

Calne, England, United Kingdom

North Wootton, Somerset, United Kingdom

At this 5 star, 26 bedroom Inn, my priority is ensuring guest satisfaction by responding to enquiries about any function including Weddings, Group Lunches/Dinners, Meetings, Wakes promptly. Discussing details to ensure their requirements are met, then pricing, taking deposits and putting together function sheets. Before any of these duties as a Duty Manager I must unlock the building, set up for breakfast, check-out hotel guests, settle the banking from the previous day, complete end of day on the reservation system and re-set the till and card machines for the day ahead. During the course of the day, while carrying out all event duties at my desk regarding functions, at any given time I will take phone reservations for bedroom or restaurant bookings as well as having to serve at the bar and check guests in. Along side this as Duty manager I often resolve customer complaints. I personally increased the marketing profile of the Inn and spent a lot of time listing the venue on relevant wedding websites, venue finder websites, local printed press and social media.

Sorrento

In this customer facing role, everyday gave the opportunity to deliver outstanding customer service. Starting from being the first smiling face guests saw as they arrived at the airport and delivering their welcome speech, ranging right through to “solving on the spot” effectively all customer complaints, as well as leading a 1.5hour guided tour of Sorrento 3 days a week. It was also a sales driven role to ensure guests booked TUI excursions and extras to enhance their holiday.

Although Ston Easton Park, a 4 red star luxury country house hotel has a huge range of guests, my main responsibility was to look after Wedding Couples every step of the way. From talking through details on the phone before they have made a decision on a venue, showing them around the hotel, completing all booking paperwork, putting together an estimated budget, arranging their menu tasting and as many meetings in the lead up to the big day as they require. Then on the day I would become operations and run the day from set up, morning meeting with the Bride and stay until the first dance.For the past few years, as social media has become more important to the business, I became responsible for scheduling our posts and keeping information up to date on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.On a daily basis I would also answer enquiries from groups of 9 or more that are looking to organise a function ranging from Lunch, Afternoon Tea, Dinner, Conference, Car show, Wedding, Funeral Wake or group Bedroom reservations. I discuss with them all the finer details including room suggestions and menus etc. via, email, phone or face to face meeting to ensure they have a special and memorable day. Following these discussions or meetings I then produced function sheets confirming all details which were circulated and briefed to all other heads of department at our weekly meeting. These briefings ensure that when I was not on site the event all runs to plan. Whatever I worked on, my aim was to always exceed guest’s expectations.Alongside these duties, I also keep up to date records of incoming enquiries via a tracker, ensure bookings are uploaded onto an online reservation system, make follow ups, work towards targets as well as helping set up functions.

ACF was an amazing company to work for, they specialised in providing corporate teambuilding and reward days for businesses as well as company Family Fun Days. It was my responsibility to ensure the client’s needs were met and to provide the best event possible within their budgetAs part of a small team I made a number of notable changes to the running of the company including; re-designing our event proposals, creating our social media presence and updating it regularly, updating risk assessments when needed, producing a quicker and simpler booking paperwork system, uploading activities and photos to our website and creating promotional videos showcasing our equipment.My daily responsibilities included taking the initial client’s enquiry and discussing their thoughts and making relevant suggestions before putting these together in a proposal which includes venue options, itineraries, activities and costing. After an event was confirmed I booked the venue space, catering, suppliers, instructors and facilitators as well as raising invoices. In the lead up to the event date, details could change so I amended these and make sure they were updated on our diary system and create a hand over sheet for the Event Manager. If possible I would attend as many events so I was able to meet the clients and to help run the event to their specifications.I also supported the MD in the Day-to-Day running of the business and between myself, another Event Executive and the MD we provided, planned and ran approximately 200 events in 2013.

My role as a Sales Assistant included responsibilities such as serving customers both on the till and assisting in fitting rooms, stock replenishment and recovery, price alignments, opening and the admin of store cards, cashing up, processing refunds and dealing with customer’s queries and problems.

My role was as a Travel Consultant. My responsibilities included: Serving/ suggesting and checking holiday availability for customers. Booking of holidays and selling insurance and car hire as extras. I dynamically packaged many holidays from individual elements to tailor-make the perfect holiday.Part of my tasks included working on the foreign exchange bureau, and also helping with the general running of the shop including administration and processing invoices on the computer as well as finding the last minute window deals.

Bachelor Of Science (Bsc), Tourism Managment, 2,1

My dissertation was a discussion of the factors involved in holding a successful event.

A-Level In Travel & Tourism, Georgraphy & Psychology