Ho! Ho! Ho! Santa has been kind this year: an unforgettable event for my internship. What to ask more?

Merry Christmas and happy holidays everyone!

Hope you are all well.

I know it’s been a long time since my last post but I just came back from the two busiest weeks of my internship at Sun Resorts Ltd.
As I mentioned in my previous post, the biggest task that I was asked to work on during my internship was to be part of the organizing team on the main event of the year for Sun Resorts which was the Standard Bank Mauritius Open 2011. I guess that you guys have run into various billboards all over the island promoting different golf competitions but being part of the back stage organization was a totally new experience for me.
First of all, the week kick started early Monday morning with a press conference at the Standard Bank at Port Louis where different media (both local and international) was invited to be briefed about the coming event and how it will be scheduled. All the sponsors were there (MTPA, Summertimes, Air Mauritius, MGF, Long Beach) as well as some of the pro golfers.
The press conference is basically the main PR event that is strictly used to promote PR efforts. The conference must be planned and it must tie into the company’s overall objectives and goals (Remember, tactics must be created from the well defined strategies.)

After the press conference, we all jumped in this one week event on Le Touessrok Golf Course.
For my part, I got the privilege to write my very own daily gazette (some kind of 1 page newsletter) which was printed and distributed every day at the hotel to all the clients and the golfers and then posted online on this website: http://www.standardbankmauritiusopen.com/, and on Facebook as well and sent to all the database contacts of my supervisors.
I did the whole gazette on my own since all my colleagues were insanely busy with what they had to do. At first I was totally freaking out and was saying to myself that my supervisor was crazy to trust me and give me such a big responsibility. But now I can say that YES I DID IT! I managed to work on 5 gazettes- one everyday- which was a resume of the day at the golf, interview of the golfers, photos of the tournament, results and so on. This feeling of creating and showing my work and what I was capable of was quite overwhelming. In addition some local journalists were asking me to send them my work as they were using it to write their news articles. Therefore I had the chance to deal with journalists and experience this blurred link between Public Relations and Journalism regarding the coverage of an event.
I learnt that the purpose of a special event may differ from company to company, but the purpose of the PR surrounding it is the same: to generate interest and to interact with the public. This means that your PR efforts need to be targeted, clear and newsworthy. You can evaluate your event’s newsworthiness and create a more successful event by first planning, and planning well. Most events will obviously encounter problems and things done last minute, so a timeline is crucial and you should stick to it!
Below is a set of photos picturing the event, you can also have a look at the different albums by clicking on this link: http://www.facebook.com/#!/media/albums/?id=357229541478

This is all for now, you are most welcomed to ask me questions if ever some things were not quite clear.

Enjoy the happy days you all!

S.