The journey start from Hilton Kuching

Harlo everyone,

After 10 days working @ Hilton Kuching, here comes my first post in the blog.

Before sharing the story that happen in Hilton, I would like to say that it is really a difficult task to get myself a chance to start my internship. Through several interviews in different hotel, I learn some skills and get a good experience about how to better handle the interview. Besides a complete and well-written resume, it is important to get yourself prepare all the time because your "potential employee" might request you to go for interview in anytime. I believe that I able to find the job easily in near future with these precious experience. 

10/01/11 is the first day I start my internship.  (I have to admit that I am nervous and less confident whether I can do a good job T.T) The PR office is not that big or we can use 'tiny' to describe the compound of the area. However, I met two friendly supervisors who are Fiona, PR officer and Amelie the assistant.

After the simple introduction to the PR (or we should call it MarCom) department in the Hilton, I have started my job. The task I been assigned to do is media clipping.

According to Fiona, media clipping is an important task for the organization that tends to SURVIVE in tourism and hotel industry. As the bridge connect with external environment, PR person shall always stay connect to the updated information and able to figure out what are the needs of different stakeholders. Through collecting and integrating the industry related daily information, the organization itself able to come out with SWOT analysis and the compliance action plan. For example, there would be an intensive competition in attracting customers between each hotel especially different festivals are just around the corner. By doing the news clipping continuously, it gives the Hilton more opportunities to deal with the rivalry competition.   After the news clipping is done, the data must be key in for further tracking the performance of Hilton as well as its competitors by measuring the PR values of each article.

Besides the news clipping, I have to make sure that the customer database is renewed and updated constantly. This ensures that the customers may receive the latest news and events of Hilton and drawing the attention of them regularly. The feedback from each customer would be a useful data as come to the measurement of loyalty program.

Subsequently, the comments and feedback from Trip Advisors must be taken into account. The poor comments to the Hilton may damage the brand reputation directly. Thus, PR person should always stay focus with the issues and look into the situations always.  The instant communication should be done if there is any potential probability that may endanger the brand.

Next, PR person should always manage the organization’s Facebook account once it is registered. Nowadays, stakeholders tend to acquire more information from Facebook. Thus, PR person must ensure that the facebook page offer them the latest and updated information.

Since the Facebook is an open and free speaking platform, everyone can leave comments in organization’s page and others can access it easily. As a result, PR person may have to spend more time to manage the page as people expected to receive the replies 24/7.

After all of this, I was assigned to draft the press release. I have drafted 4 press releases within these 10 days. The press releases include Chinese New Year Promotion, Valentine Promotion, Hilton Internal Sommelier Competition as well as the Batang Ai CSR project review.  I feel the work is challenging and I enjoy of doing it because it is exactly what we have learn in previous PR units.

Despite of those “office work”, I am happy that I have an opportunity to be involved in different activities at Hilton, both internal and external. I will share these stories in my next post.

Regards,

Vincent Chai

Curtin Miri
14041750