Can you run the operation when the plan stops going according to plan?
Tours are booked. Vehicles are moving. Guests are waiting. A driver calls in sick. A hotel needs an answer. Reservations has a problem. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, the numbers still have to work.
That is this job.
Landsea Tours is looking for a General Manager to lead its Vancouver operation, bringing together people, operations, guest experience and business performance.
This isn't a GM role where you sit several layers above the work.
We need someone who can see the whole operation, build a strong management team and still get close enough to the business to understand what is actually happening.
You’ll have room to make decisions, improve how things work and establish a strong leadership presence in Vancouver, with the support and experience of Landsea’s ownership partners behind you.
If you like complex operations, genuinely enjoy leading people and stay pretty steady when six things change before 10:00 a.m., keep reading.
What You’ll Own
Run the Operation
You’ll be accountable for Landsea’s day-to-day Vancouver operation and for making sure the moving pieces actually move together.
That includes:
- Tour operations, reservations, staffing, scheduling, fleet and operational resources
- Anticipating issues before they become tomorrow morning’s emergency
- Making sound real-time decisions when plans inevitably change
- Connecting departments and solving problems that cross functional lines
- Managing budgets, resources and operational priorities
- Monitoring business and financial performance and identifying opportunities to improve
- Maintaining appropriate safety, compliance, vehicle and operational-risk standards
- Supporting business planning and identifying growth opportunities in the Vancouver market
You won't personally do every piece of this work. You will make sure someone owns it, understands what good looks like and follows through.
Lead the People
This business depends on people making good decisions every day.
You’ll:
- Lead and develop Landsea’s management team
- Be visible and accessible to employees across the operation
- Make sure departments communicate instead of operating as separate islands
- Set clear expectations and follow up on them
- Coach managers through problems rather than automatically solving everything for them
- Oversee workforce planning, hiring and performance management
- Ask questions and understand what happened before jumping to conclusions
- Deal with performance issues and difficult conversations when they need to happen
- Build trust and mutual respect across office employees, reservations, operations and driver-guides
- Create an environment where people have enough clarity and authority to make good decisions in real time
We are looking for someone who genuinely likes leading people. Not someone who merely tolerates the people part because it comes with the GM title.
Own the Guest Experience
Operations and guest experience are not separate things here.
You’ll:
- Keep the guest experience in the middle of operational decisions
- Ensure tours are professional, safe, reliable and memorable
- Step into complex or escalated guest situations when senior leadership is needed
- Use feedback from guests and employees to improve service and operations
- Maintain strong relationships within Vancouver’s tourism community
- Support local hotel relationships and identify partnership and business-development opportunities
Your Resume Should Show Us
There are some things we should be able to establish before we ever meet.
We’re looking for evidence of:
- Progressive leadership responsibility in an operational, logistics, hospitality, transportation or service business
- Experience leading managers and teams, not only individual contributors
- Responsibility for a reasonably complex day-to-day operation with multiple moving parts
- Experience with staffing, scheduling, resource planning or workforce operations
- Accountability for budgets, financial performance or business results
- Experience improving systems, processes or operational performance
- Comfort working with technology and operational systems
Experience in tourism, transportation or hospitality is an asset, but it isn't the only path into this role. If you've successfully led a business where people, schedules, customers and operational resources all had to come together at the right time, we want to hear about it.
In the Interview, We’ll Be Looking For Something Different
A resume can tell us where you've worked. The interview will tell us how you work.
We’ll want to understand how you:
Handle the messy stuff.
- Tell us what you do when staffing changes, a customer issue escalates and the original operational plan no longer works.
Lead without becoming the bottleneck.
- We want a hands-on leader. We don't want every decision in the company waiting for the GM.
Hold people accountable.
- Can you be approachable and supportive while still being very clear when expectations aren't being met?
Ask before assuming.
- When something goes wrong, do you investigate what happened or immediately decide who caused it?
Coach managers.
- Can you build stronger leaders underneath you rather than becoming everyone's problem solver?
Connect the dots.
- Can you see how a staffing decision affects the schedule, the fleet, guest experience and ultimately the financial result?
Think commercially.
- Can you look beyond today's operation and recognize an opportunity, risk or decision that matters to the business?
And yes, we’ll also be paying attention to whether you seem like someone people would actually want to work with. That part matters.
What You’ll Get
- Salary of $90,000–$110,000, based on experience and qualifications
- Paid vacation
- Extended health and dental benefits
- Health spending account
- RRSP contribution matching
- Paid sick days
- The opportunity to lead and shape a well-established Vancouver tourism operation
- Support from experienced tourism operators while maintaining meaningful local ownership of the day-to-day business
A Little About Landsea
Landsea Tours has been showcasing Vancouver and Canada's West Coast since 1985, operating small-group tours throughout Vancouver and to destinations including Whistler and Victoria.
Landsea is jointly owned by Discover Banff Tours and SunDog Tours, two established Western Canadian tourism operators. Through a management agreement, Discover Banff Tours also supports broader functions including international travel-trade sales, marketing and website management.
That means the Vancouver GM gets an interesting combination: real responsibility for the local operation, with experienced operators and infrastructure behind the business.
Interested?
Please apply with your resume and cover letter combined into one document.
This is an on-site leadership role in Vancouver, and the successful candidate will be expected to work in person as part of the day-to-day operation.
We appreciate everyone who takes the time to apply. We’ll contact candidates whose resumes demonstrate the core experience required for the role.
