Senior Travel Expert (High-Ticket Consumer Sales)

The role in a line You turn people considering a Journee Proposal into bookings. You own every conversation with someone who hasn't booked yet, and you start the ones that aren't happening today. About Journee Journee is a surprise travel company. Our Explorers answer a few questions, we plan and book the whole trip, and they don't find out where they're going until they're at the airport. We're growing fast across the UK, US and Canada, with a 4.8/5 rating from 2,000+ reviews. More than 20,000 people request a Journee proposal every month. The vast majority say they love the sound of their match, but given it is a high trust, low frequency purchase, conversion to book is low. We know that people who message us with questions or changes are far more likely to book than people who don't, but only around 5% of people who get a proposal message us. That gap is part of the job. You own the conversation with the people who do get in touch, and you start the conversations that aren't happening today. This is a hands-on, individual contributor role. You'll reply to every message from someone who hasn't booked yet, and run tests to reach the ones who never message at all. Why this role exists Until now, one small team split across London and India has looked after both the people deciding whether to book and the people already travelling. Those are two different jobs. Someone weighing up a trip needs patience and persuasion. Someone locked out of an apartment at 2am needs calm and speed. So we are splitting the two and building a team whose whole job is to solely focus on conversion. You would be one of the first two people focused solely on this, and between you, you’d own the leads pipeline completely (both reactive replies to people who message and test cadences for outreach). What you'll own The leads conversation as a proper queue, shared with one colleague: every WhatsApp, SMS, email and the occasional call from someone still deciding, worked like a pipeline where every thread has an owner and a next step. Any incoming lead message. Whether it's specific questions, requests for changes, hesitations or special add ons, you respond with the aim of solving the user’s problem and converting the lead into a booking. You’ll have authority to rematch a destination and change trip details (e.g. dates and budgets) if that helps get them over the line. The skill is knowing our catalogue well enough to do it fast and get it right. The outreach programme. A sequence of tests where you'll contact leads who haven't contacted us but look high intent and could use a hand. One test live at a time, each with a metric agreed before it starts and a line below which we kill it. You write the messages, work the lists, and log what happens. The objection library. Every reason someone didn't book, logged, tagged, and used by the product team. You're the person who hears the whole conversation, synthesises the insights and shares it with the team. What success looks like in your first six months You handle your half of the lead queue solo. Nothing sits unanswered and nobody checks your replies before they go. You know the catalogue well enough to rematch someone in a single message, at the speed the conversation needs. You've run at least three outreach tests, each with a metric agreed before the first send, and killed the ones that didn't clear it. The objection library is good enough that we change the proposal or matchmaking because of something you found. The people you reach out to book more often than the ones we deliberately hold back as a control group, and you can show it. What you'll bringMust-haves: 3-5 years experience in a written-first sales role. Ideally you've converted users to buy high ticket price products/services by talking directly to them. Exceptional writing skills. You write like a person: warm, short, human messages. You know that a 40-word message that changes someone's mind is harder than a 400 word email. A knack for understanding what people really mean and want. You look for what someone is and isn't saying, dig for what the actual worry may be and answer the deeper concerns to convert them. Wanting the sale. You're comfortable asking someone to commit, and you follow up without ever making it feel like pressure. Efficient and structured with your pipeline. You can hold fifty conversations at once without dropping anyone or losing track of the thread. Testing mindset. You love to test different hypotheses to improve conversion. You're also numerate enough to analyse how the test did, curious enough to dig into why, and comfortable enough to say when it doesn't work. Strong travel knowledge base. You'll learn our catalogue fast because your personal travel experiences, previous work and/or interest in various destinations give you an inherent advantage. Happy working some weekends a month on a published rota. Nice to have: Comfortable on the phone. Most of this role is written, but customers occasionally want to talk, and we may test calls more deliberately. Experience running outreach tests. You’re good at identifying high intent leads and running outreach, lifecycle and sales tests to convert them against a control group. LLM experience. You use LLM tools extensively to fill gaps and work faster, but not to outsource judgement. Travel background. You might be a Senior Travel Consultant or Trip Specialist today, at a tour operator, an OTA or a tailor-made travel company. Experience selling to both UK and US customers. This role probably isn't for you if: You're mainly a phone closer. Most of this job happens in writing, and the bar for the writing is high. You want to design itineraries. You can tweak someone’s match but our catalogue team builds the trips. You think conversion is the end goal, even when it means someone books a trip that isn't right for them and tells us so afterwards. You need a playbook. A lot of what you'll do here has never been tried, and the first version of it will be yours. You'd rather not have a number against your name. We'll measure whether the conversations in the tests make people book against a control group, and sometimes the answer will be no. The logistics Title: Senior Travel Expert Type: Full-time, permanent, Individual contributor role (no direct reports) Location: London - hybrid, in our Bethnal Green office Tuesday to Thursday Reports to: Megha, Founder & Chief Product Officer Salary: £37,000 to £46,000 depending on experience Benefits: Employee share options, so you own a piece of Journee, 25 days holiday plus bank holidays, and £1,000 a year to spend on a Journee trip of your own Start: As soon as possible Other: We hold a Skilled Worker sponsor licence and are open to sponsoring the right person How to apply Everything starts with the form below. It asks you a few questions about your experience and interest in the role and should take you about 15 minutes to submit. We read every response. Application Form: https://journee1.typeform.com/to/A8shpsJP What happens next After the form, if we were to proceed with you, the next steps are: A written task. Three hypothetical inbound lead conversations to write replies to, and a test idea for outreach based on our existing proposal flow. This should take you around 1-1.5 hours. The process is the same for everyone, and we’ll never publish what you write. A structured interview with the founders. We go through your replies, get to know you, and dig into how you think about testing. A paid trial day in our Bethnal Green office. Real threads alongside the person you'd work with, then you spec a real test and present it. An offer, if it's a yes on both sides. We reply to everyone who does the task. Everyone is welcome Journee is an equal-opportunity employer. We hire for talent, hunger and the drive to make things happen, and we welcome applicants from every background. Need an adjustment to the process? Just tell us and we will sort it.