The Director, Distribution Strategy will own and lead Langham Hospitality Group’s global distribution strategy across all revenue channels and reservations sales, with a primary focus on driving profitable growth, cost efficiency, and channel optimization across both direct and third-party distribution.
This role carries full accountability for the performance, governance, and continuous evolution of the Group’s distribution ecosystem, including third-party channels and the Group’s Reservations function, ensuring the optimal channel mix and alignment with LHG’s broader commercial and brand objectives. Success in this role is measured by tangible outcomes across channel contribution, economics, service effectiveness, and strategic relevance.
As a global position, the role provides subject-matter leadership across international markets, including Mainland China, working closely with hotels, regional teams, corporate stakeholders, the central Reservations organization, and external distribution partners. A critical element of the role is close collaboration with Brilliant by Langham, ensuring distribution and reservations strategies actively support member acquisition, conversion, and loyalty-driven revenue growth.

Role Responsibility

Distribution Strategy & Performance Ownership

• Own end-to-end distribution strategy across Direct, OTA, GDS, Wholesale, Meta Search, Reservations, and emerging channels, with clear accountability for channel performance, economics, service effectiveness, and strategic relevance.
• Drive direct channel growth through governance of booking engine performance and reservations effectiveness, channel strategy alignment, and close partnership with Revenue, E-Commerce, and Loyalty teams.
• Define and enforce global guardrails for channel participation, reservations practices, rate strategy, inventory management, parity, content quality, merchandising, and brand presentation, with clearly articulated standards and approved exception processes.

Commercial Governance, SOPs & Audits

• Define, maintain, and continuously refine global distribution and reservations SOPs, policies, and operating standards; ensure consistent application across all hotels and regions.
• Lead regular audits covering rate parity, reservations quality, content accuracy, data integrity, channel compliance, and system configuration across CRS, PMS, RMS, and third-party platforms.
• Function as the senior escalation point for complex distribution or reservations issues impacting commercial performance, cost of sale, service delivery, or brand integrity.

Distribution Partner, Reservations & Contracting Leadership

• Own relationships with global and regional distribution partners and key reservations technology and service partners, including OTAs, GDS providers, wholesalers, call center platforms, and connectivity partners.
• Provide strategic oversight of the Reservations function as a revenue-driving distribution channel, ensuring service standards, conversion performance, and commercial alignment with overall distribution strategy.
• Lead commercial negotiations, contracting, renewals, and long-term optimization of partner and supplier terms related to distribution and reservations, with a clear focus on net revenue contribution, cost control, and strategic value creation.

Market Evolution & New Opportunity Development

• Continuously assess global and regional distribution and reservations trends, including hands-on evaluation of Mainland China-specific platforms, partners, regulatory considerations and booking behaviours, to ensure LHG remains competitive and future-ready.
• Identify, assess, and pilot new distribution models, reservations capabilities, technologies and commercial opportunities that enhance reach, efficiency, profitability, or member engagement.

Loyalty & Member Channel Integration

• Partner closely with Brilliant by Langham to ensure distribution and reservations strategies are fully aligned with member acquisition, direct booking conversion, and loyalty revenue contribution.
• Ensure member rates, benefits, content, and value propositions are consistently and accurately positioned across direct channels, reservations touchpoints, and selected third-party channels where appropriate.

Data, Insights & Reporting

• Provide clear, decision-oriented insights on channel and reservations performance, cost of sale, service effectiveness, and customer booking behaviour to inform commercial strategy and prioritization.
• Support hotels and regions with standardized reporting, interpretation, and actionable recommendations to improve channel and reservations contribution and profitability.
• Own oversight of data integrity, consistency, and alignment across all distribution- and reservations-related systems and reporting sources.

Systems, Capability & Change Leadership

• Provide functional leadership for distribution and reservations systems including CRS, call center and reservations platforms, channel managers, GDS, and related tools, in close partnership with Technology, Digital and Revenue teams.
• Support new hotel openings, conversions and major system initiatives from a distribution and reservations perspective, ensuring commercial readiness and optimal channel configuration
• Lead capability-building, education and change management efforts to strengthen distribution and reservations maturity across regional and hotel teams globally.

Experience & Expertise

• Minimum 8–10 years of progressive experience in hotel distribution, reservations, revenue management, e-commerce or commercial strategy within a global, multi-property or corporate environment.
• Proven track record of owning enterprise-level distribution strategies, including third-party channel governance, partner negotiations and contracting, with demonstrated experience overseeing reservations as a revenue-generating channel.
• Deep, hands-on understanding of international distribution and reservations landscapes, with demonstrated expertise in Mainland China distribution ecosystems.

Technical & Commercial Capability

• Strong working knowledge of CRS, PMS, RMS, reservations platforms, channel management systems, OTAs, GDS, wholesalers and meta search environments.
• Demonstrated ability to evaluate channel and reservations economics, manage cost of sale, service effectiveness, and translate data insights into commercially sound decisions.
• Comfortable operating at both strategic and executional levels, bridging strategy formulation with disciplined implementation.

Leadership & Stakeholder Management

• Proven ability to lead through influence in a global, matrixed organization with diverse stakeholders, including corporate, regional, hotel and reservations teams.
• Strong relationship management capabilities with senior internal leaders and external distribution and reservations partners.
• Credible, clear communicator with the ability to simplify complexity, drive alignment, and lead change.

Education & Language

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Hospitality, Analytics, or related discipline (or equivalent experience).
• Fluent Mandarin (spoken, read, and written) is mandatory; strong professional English communication skills required.