Damaris Fallas

Business Developer in travel and food industries

Turismo / Viajes / Hospitalidad

Heredia, Heredia

Acerca de Damaris Fallas:

"A business developer with vast experience in the travel industry as a reservations and sales manager in airlines, working directly with travel agencies and corporate accounts. Similarly, I had the opportunity to lead and develop a foreign investment project as general manager of manufacturing company for dry pineapple under free trade zone regime, which not only provided me with the opportunity to learn about this industry but also to strengthen and apply my administrative knowledge and learn about the free trade zone regime in Costa Rica."

Experiencia

Jun 2023- Nov 2024. AGUNSA GSA for Air Canada, Costa Rica

Commercial Manager

- Prepare sales & commercial strategy for Air Canada services.

- Offer virtual and onsite product presentations to travel agents.

- Negotiate incentive conditions for agencies with headquarters to negotiate contracts with agencies.

- Support travel agencies with reservations, fares, and ticketing inquiries.

- In charge of local group process, starting from quotations, reservations and ticketing.

- Analyze data for country's productivity and its competition.

- Generate a revenue sales increase in the first 6 months on a 88% YOY.

Apr 2015- Dec 2022 FRUTA SANA FSL SRL, Siquirres, Costa Rica

General Manager & Business Development

- Lead processes for company legal registration, Free Zone application, opening of bank accounts, plant construction, and initial operations set-up, etc.
- Direct liaison with stakeholders internal/external.
- Oversees management of all personnel activities: hiring, training, and evaluation of team members performance to ensure equitable personnel administration.
- Free Zone coordinator.
- Legal representative of the company and direct liaison between board of directors, government institutions such as CINDE, PROCOMER, INA, ICE, Foreign affairs office, etc.
- Certifications Coordinator, such as BRC and Essential Costa Rica Certificates.
- Development and execution of annual business plan.
- Exhibitor at international trade fairs organized by Procomer, such as ANUGA in Germany, FANCY FOOD SHOW in USA, and BTM in Costa Rica.
- Managed excellent vendor and customer relationships.
- Negotiator with raw materials suppliers.
- Responsible for the development of new projects.

Sep 2004 -Jun 2013. DELTA AIR LINES, Costa Rica & Honduras

District Sales Manager

-Development and execution of the annual business plan and budget for Costa Rica and Honduras markets. Including traffic from/to Atlanta – Honduras (Tegucigalpa and San Pedro de Sula), as well as San Jose – Costa Rica (Liberia and San Jose).
- Conduct product presentations for travel agencies and corporate accounts.

- Establishment of sales goals for sales team, accordingly to the territory and niche market, to achieve country KPI’s goals.
- Achievement of KPI’s for corporate, leisure and ethnic traffic.

- Coordinator for the remodeling process for a new office site.

- Direct contact for business associations, chambers of commerce, government offices and customers.
- Established alliances with suppliers to promote the brand.
- Planned and sponsored Social Responsibility Activities.
- Coordinate the strategy with local PR agency for marketing and global communications.

- Responsible for reviewing and authorizing business expenses of team members, aligned with corporate travel policy.
- Prepared and managed budget accordingly with company regulations.
- Member of the board of directors of ALA (Costa Rica Airline Association).

- Exceeded Revenue Goal during 3 consecutive years by 30% YOY.

Dec1998-Jun 2003. UNITED AIRLINES, San Jose & Guatemala

Automation Manager, GALILEO GDS System

- Responsible of the Automation Department in Costa Rica and Guatemala, with a team of 12 people reporting. Including technical support representatives, trainers, and sales representatives.

- Prepared and managed budget for Costa Rica and Guatemala.

- Engaged prospects, users and decision makers through trade shows, seminars, and workshops in Costa Rica and Guatemala.

- Exceeded goal with a market share increase by 22% in Costa Rica and 16% for Guatemala.

- Stablished productivity goals and ensure compliance toward corporate objectives.

- Responsible for escalating customer issues to ensure satisfactory resolution.
- Participated in promotional activities in Uruguay, Argentina and Guatemala.

Mar 1992 –Dec 1998 UNITED AIRLINES INC, San José, Costa Rica

Reservations Manager

- Reservations and Ticket office department set up, during GSA startup, with 25 agents.
- Member of the implementation team of ETKT Service project for Latin America.
- Managed HR activities such as recruitment, staffing, professional staff development, control of vacations and team incentive programs implementation.
- Perform on site performance evaluations, and customer surveys, focusing in customer service experience.

- Budget preparation and management.
- Analyzed direct sales, advance bookings, loyalty program enrollments and CRM statistics.
- Implemented incentives to increase frequent flyer enrollments, achieving more than 4.000 enrollments in a very low cost of acquisition.

- Direct liaison between sales representatives and operational team members.
- Active participation to Airport Operations on weekends during high season.
- Reduced and maintain attrition rate to headquarters levels.
- Emergency Response team member.