Time flies.. this is now my third post in this internship period. Today's actually a public holiday but I thought I'd recap what's been going on in my life so far.
In my first post, I revealed that I'm actually working on a hotel client account which is based overseas, specifically in the Maldives. This hotel has gone through its soft launch and response has been very positive.
The next part seems to be the difficult bit because the launch, for us, involved disseminating news releases and reporting the subsequent coverage. Now, we have to sustain the coverage through media familiarisations so that travel writers can review the hotel and its offerings and publicise it to its readers.
I'm just getting the hang that media famils (for short) involves some sort of 'barter', especially when it's in the hospitality industry I suppose. Can't imagine that the flights there and back to a country of origin, coupled with accommodation can be the cheapest thing on an expense sheet..
Anyway, one of the steps taken to encourage media famils would be to identify airlines flying in and out of a certain country, in my case, Maldives and approach them to gauge their interest to work together on media familiarisation trips. Thereafter, we also identify key publications relevant to the client and compile a media list of travel writers. Our role is to facilitate these trips taken by the travel writer, on said airline, and host them at the hotel.
In writing, it sounds very workable but in reality, just getting hold of the right department and person at an airline is an extremely time-consuming job. Add on some language and time differences and we are looking at possibly a week or two, just to touch base with relevant people. Suffice to say, this is still something I'm working on but time is ticking away...
Would also like to add that I'm also involved in the refresh of a local hotel but will elaborate in a next post :)
Till tomorrow, since work starts then...
Yvette
Curtin Singapore
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