Nawal Hassan
Nairobi
Summary
Dedicated Operations & Customer excellence professional with a history of success in Project management, Excellent Customer Service and People management with the organizations that I have worked with strong analytical and communication skills to identify and address individual client/organizations needs and ensuring the Mission, Brand and Goals are duly met. Energetic Operation & Customer experience specialist lead with 10+ years of experience in the Travel industry within Africa and the global community in South America, Asia and Canada. Champion in fostering relationships & partnerships. Maintaining Budgets and goal implementation through training, reports and continuous coaching. Open and clear communicator skillful in resolving conflicts and forging a solution oriented plan.
Overview
17
17
years of professional experience
Work History
Client Experience Expert
Go2Africa
Nairobi, Kenya
10.2023 - Current
- Leverage extensive knowledge of East Africa's luxury safari, lodge, camp, hotel and experiential landscape to support the delivery of high-value, highly personalised travel experiences.
- Build and maintain strong relationships with clients, suppliers and internal stakeholders, acting as a trusted link between product, operations, sales and the end client.
- Apply detailed destination and product knowledge to identify suitable properties, experiences and solutions based on client requirements, commercial considerations and overall trip objectives.
- Monitor client feedback, operational performance and recurring service trends to identify opportunities for improvement across the travel product and customer journey.
- Collaborate cross-functionally with Sales, Operations and other teams to resolve complex issues, improve processes and ensure products and services meet the company's luxury brand standards.
- Use reporting, performance information and client insights to identify recurring challenges, opportunities and areas requiring corrective action.
- Contribute to product and destination knowledge across the business through knowledge sharing, coaching and ongoing engagement with travel partners and internal teams.
- Manage multiple complex client journeys and competing priorities simultaneously, maintaining high levels of accuracy, service delivery and stakeholder communication.
- Develop and maintain trusted relationships with industry partners, using strong communication, negotiation and problem-solving skills to achieve positive outcomes for both clients and the business.
- Bring a broad understanding of the African travel industry developed through experience across multiple travel functions, enabling an end-to-end view of product, supplier, operational and customer experience requirements.
Operation Manager
Southern Cross Safaris
Mombasa
10.2022 - 09.2023
- Key Responsibilities:
- Manage relationships with All International agents in Australia, Cape Town and London region.
- Create a smooth operational communication system between the reservations and operations department to ensure a smooth transition of operations.
- Manage Incidents during a trip & also report to the agents as they occur and take relevant action.
- Product assessment of trips and develop new products.
- The company has a strong withstanding repeat clientele due to its reputation- Keeping the client relationship at per with new ideas of packages and gifts for their loyal clientele.
- In charge of Social media campaigns
- Curate and run Driver Guides Trainings on Client satisfaction and Excellence through service.
Relationship Manager
Mtana Safaris
10.2019 - 09.2022
- Key Responsibilities:
- Implementing change strategy with the companies in the decline stage or
- Meet and Greet VIP clients and ensure all goes smoothly with personal touch.
- Collaborate & Design with the Respective organization on new upcoming Travel Products and Community projects.
- Assist with Overlooking Day to Day operations.
- Creating implementation planning for the Customer experience journey and creating monitoring tools and platforms for the NPS.
- Design & Facilitate Corporate team buildings and ensure that end to end
Operations Manager
G Adventures Inc Canada
Nairobi
10.2017 - 09.2019
- Key Responsibilities:
- Worked with the Non Profit organization of the company, Planeterra (https://planeterra.org/) on all their Programme management for their East Africa projects- Kenya (Ubuntu Life), Uganda (Aid Child), Rwanda (Nyamirambo Women’s center), Tanzania (Moshi Mamas, Masai Clean cookstove, Mto wa Mbu)
- Identify new projects within East Africa to support and implement as part of the Safari itinerary by creating a ripple effect.
- Facilitate fundraisings, grants proposals, grantors feedback report and impact reporting
- Facilitating in creating training materials and delivering of the training to the local communities within the projects in Africa.
- Fostering new Partnerships with the company and ensuring their Brand is well represented and guidelines are strictly adhered
- Lead Team that facilitated the Partnerships with National Geographic & Jane Goodall Institute that resulted to trips running in Africa under their brand.
- Prepared presentation materials, research, reports, meeting agenda and minutes for the East Africa region.
- Event Planning, End to end managements of events, meetings, trainings and projects.
- Champion the Product meetings- reviewing clients feedback from the Evaluations report, Team feedback and website review. Additionally reviewing the Crisis management process based on incidents occurred in the quarterly report.
- In charge of training the Tour leaders in Kenya, Tanzania, Zanzibar, Uganda, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Madagascar and South Africa on New Trip Products and Brand presentation while leading the trips.
- Work with the Marketing and Design department on Branding products and ensure that the hotels, Transports and Teams have proper branding equipment whilst running the trip.
- Managed Supplier Relationships in Africa and kept consistency in communication between the offices and main office in Canada.
- Developed and implemented the budget of the East African office, Quarterly & annual operational plans, and performance of the Group.
- Work hand in hand with Human resource on recruiting Tour leaders across Africa and Team members in the Nairobi office.
- Champion Social media engagement campaigns in collecting pictures, videos from the clients and tour leaders for the Marketing department.
- G Adventures Inc Canada (Nairobi Office). Worked with the Non Profit organization of the company, Planeterra (https://planeterra.org/) on all their Programme management for their East Africa projects.
Administration Supervisor
G Adventures
10.2015 - 10.2016
- Key Responsibilities:
- Main point of contact for regional sales enquiries related to our safaris & tours.
- Reviewing all contracts with Hotels, Service Provider, Suppliers in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Madagascar, Senegal and Ethiopia.
- Ensured all hotels/suppliers had the necessary system trainings
- Ensured trip costs were accurate including monitoring tour leader trip costs and supplier trip costs and conveying any updates to the Regional Operations Manager, Buying Manager and Accounting department.
- Created good relationships with our active suppliers in East Africa and Madagascar.
- Actioned the regional emergency phone for all passenger and field emergency issues.
Sales & Reservations Manager
Scenic Air Safaris
10.2011 - 10.2015
- Reviewing the NPS reports- Managing the trips to be customer centric and our services are top notch service.
- Key Responsibilities:
- Managed all safari requests, bookings, client transfers and charter enquiries for Scenic air.
- Managed all quotations to clients for safari charters and ensured receipt of payment from agents or clients was done in time.
- Handled the Petty cash & all banking transactions including record keeping.
- Created a customer database, collected client feedback and produced monthly and annual report for GM/MD.
- Kept a record of all safaris sold by agents and or individuals.
- Sent out Pre Safari briefing to Pilots, Guides and camps and lodges with day by day breakdown of timings and itinerary so all parties were well prepared and coordinated.
- Sent briefing to Airport Ground staff to ensure correct handling of Landing fees, Nav fees and passenger departure tax.
- Monitored and Control Room Allotments and sent stop sales when departures were fully booked.
- Monitored flights on Live Satellite tracking.
- Dealt with the Sales & Marketing.
- Responded to emails & online bookings.
- In charge of invoices.
- Telephone operations.
Reservations Consultant
Ketty Tours Travel & Safaris Limited
01.2010 - 01.2011
- Key Responsibilities:
- Telephone operations.
- Hotel reservations & safaris.
- Excursions, local & international.
- General customer care.
- Attended to Walk in Clients.
- Responded to emails & online bookings.
- Handled Hotel Payments & invoices.
Education
Bachelors Degree - Business and Administration
Kenyatta University
Diploma - Flight Dispatch And Operations
Mombasa Aviation Training Institute
MombasaDiploma In Travel Operation & Ticketing - aviation
IATA Foundation Diploma
Certificate - Computer systems and Applications
Mabati Technical Institute
Skills
- Organizational skills
- Working under pressure
- Task management
- Prioritization
- Time management
- Teamwork
- Assertiveness
- Interpersonal skills
- Communication skills
- Attention to detail
- Quality assurance
- Accuracy
- Abstract thinking
- Leadership
- Self-motivation
- Ambition
- Creativity
- Innovation
- Negotiation skills
- Influencing outcomes
- Travel knowledge
- Cross-departmental understanding
References
Giada Classen (Go2Africa)
+27 83 262 0930
Glen Rawlings (Southern Cross Safaris)
+254 700 719 896
Email: glen@southerncrosssafaris.com
Mr. James Nguya ( Mtana Safaris CEO And Founder)
+254722809076- James@mtanasafaris.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-nguya-446bb5ba/
Mr. Kristopher Martinez (G Adventures Based In Canada)
+16475734461
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chriswithak/
Mr. Torben Rune Scenic Air Safaris Managing Director
+254733612950
Timeline
Client Experience Expert
Go2Africa
10.2023 - Current
Operation Manager
Southern Cross Safaris
10.2022 - 09.2023
Relationship Manager
Mtana Safaris
10.2019 - 09.2022
Operations Manager
G Adventures Inc Canada
10.2017 - 09.2019
Administration Supervisor
G Adventures
10.2015 - 10.2016
Sales & Reservations Manager
Scenic Air Safaris
10.2011 - 10.2015
Reservations Consultant
Ketty Tours Travel & Safaris Limited
01.2010 - 01.2011
Bachelors Degree - Business and Administration
Kenyatta University
Diploma - Flight Dispatch And Operations
Mombasa Aviation Training Institute
Diploma In Travel Operation & Ticketing - aviation
IATA Foundation Diploma
Certificate - Computer systems and Applications
Mabati Technical Institute