Senior Manager of Events and Tours - Enrollment
Position Summary
The Senior Manager of Events and Tours leads the strategy, planning, execution, and continuous improvement of enrollment-focused events and tours designed to engage prospective students and their families, strengthen the enrollment experience, and drive conversion.
This role manages the Events and Tours team and serves as a strategic partner across Enrollment, Marketing, Admissions, Student Services, and campus leadership. The Senior Manager ensures that every event and tour reflects the institution's brand, provides an exceptional experience for prospective students and guests, and contributes measurably to enrollment goals.
The role serves all enrollment audiences, developing experiences that support prospective students throughout the enrollment journey-from initial awareness and inquiry through application, admission, deposit, and enrollment.
Key Responsibilities
Enrollment Event & Tour Strategy
- Develop and execute a comprehensive events and tours strategy aligned with institutional enrollment objectives.
- Lead the design and evolution of prospective student events, campus tours, open houses, admitted-student programs, yield events, virtual experiences, and other enrollment initiatives.
- Create experiences that effectively communicate the institution's academic programs, student experience, campus community, and value proposition.
- Identify opportunities to use events and tours to increase engagement, application, yield, and enrollment outcomes.
- Establish annual calendars, priorities, goals, budgets, and operational plans for enrollment events and tours.
Event & Tour Operations
- Oversee the end-to-end planning and execution of enrollment events and tours, including logistics, staffing, communications, programming, facilities, vendors, technology, and guest services.
- Develop standardized processes and best practices that ensure consistent execution across events and experiences.
- Partner with campus departments and stakeholders to coordinate speakers, presentations, student ambassadors, faculty participation, facilities, and other event components.
- Ensure events and tours are accessible, welcoming, inclusive, and responsive to the needs of diverse audiences.
- Anticipate operational challenges and develop contingency plans to ensure a seamless prospective-student experience.
Enrollment & Conversion
- Partner closely with Enrollment leadership to connect events and tours to recruitment and conversion strategies.
- Develop event experiences and follow-up strategies that move prospective students through the enrollment funnel.
- Use enrollment data and audience insights to identify opportunities to improve engagement, attendance, application, yield, and enrollment outcomes.
- Collaborate with Admissions and Enrollment teams to ensure event and tour experiences complement recruitment communications and outreach.
- Establish and monitor key performance indicators to measure the effectiveness and return on investment of events and tours.
Marketing, Communications & Experience
- Collaborate with Marketing and Communications to develop event positioning, messaging, invitations, registration experiences, and follow-up communications.
- Ensure event content and guest experiences consistently reinforce the institution's brand and enrollment messaging.
- Develop strategies to increase event participation and engagement among prospective students, families, admitted students, and other enrollment audiences.
- Gather and incorporate feedback from guests, students, families, staff, and campus partners to continuously improve the experience.
Budget & Vendor Management
- Develop and manage event and tour budgets, ensuring resources are strategically allocated to support enrollment priorities.
- Negotiate and manage relationships with external vendors, partners, and service providers.
- Monitor expenditures and maintain appropriate financial controls and reporting.
Assessment & Continuous Improvement
- Establish dashboards, reports, and performance measures to evaluate event and tour effectiveness.
- Analyze attendance, engagement, conversion, and enrollment data to inform future strategies.
- Conduct post-event assessments and implement improvements based on data and stakeholder feedback.
- Stay current with emerging trends and best practices in enrollment events, campus visitation, student experience, and higher education recruitment.
Required
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent combination of education and relevant experience.
- Significant experience in event management, enrollment, admissions, recruitment, higher education, hospitality, or a related field.
- Demonstrated experience leading and developing teams.
- Proven ability to manage complex events, programs, and multiple priorities simultaneously.
- Strong project management, organizational, communication, and interpersonal skills.
- Experience using data and performance metrics to evaluate programs and inform decisions.
- Demonstrated ability to collaborate effectively across departments and with diverse stakeholders.
Preferred
- Master's degree in higher education, enrollment management, marketing, communications, business, hospitality, or a related field.
- Experience working in higher education enrollment, admissions, recruitment, or student experience.
- Experience managing campus tours and prospective-student or admitted-student events.
- Experience developing event strategies specifically designed to support enrollment conversion.
- Familiarity with CRM, event registration, scheduling, and enrollment management technologies.
Core Competencies
- Strategic enrollment leadership
- Event and experience design
- Team leadership and staff development
- Project and operational management
- Relationship building and cross-functional collaboration
- Data-informed decision-making
- Budget and resource management
- Customer and guest experience
- Problem-solving and adaptability
- Continuous improvement
Success in This Role
Success will be demonstrated through a strong, high-performing Events and Tours team; exceptional experiences for prospective students and families; efficient and scalable event operations; strong collaboration across Enrollment and campus partners; and measurable contributions to prospective-student engagement, conversion, yield, and overall enrollment goals.