Celebrating World Tourism Day - When environment affects public relations

Hey all,

This particular blog is about understanding public relations from an entirely human perspective, letting professions diverge from face-to-face conversations and the spread of knowledge from generations to generations.  I would personally summarise Saturday 27/02/2016 in just four words “seeing with the ears”. To celebrate the International Tourist Guide Odigos invited over guests from the tourism industry namely DMC managers to give them a glimpse of the roles and responsibilities of the tourist guide during a preplanned excursion. Their reaction was far beyond expectation as they got carried away by the high level of professionalism of our guide Mike who embraced the role of an educator, historian and geologist. Excursions are quite often sold as sightseeing tours but Odigos dares to tickle all of the five senses of the individual thus laying emphasis on more than just the Visuals. 

In boosting the tourism profile, there is the need to align the activities with the expectations of the locals, strengthening relationship building at the grassroots level. Synergism could be achieved if the activities of the industry will be coordinated with other industrial activities (e.g. car rentals, hotel services, etc). Further, what is increasingly an issue is the ethicality of the travel and tourism sector. Green business practices, for instance, are widely regulated within the travel and tourism industry.  For instance on this particular day to celebrate World Tourism Day, Odigos had opted to gather its publics into an utterly green environment by choosing the coastal theme.  Setting up a brunch (breakfast-lunch) in the South of the island, and allowing business partners to fancy summer meals near the blue lagoons, helped shaped a positive and down-to-earth image on the company, detaching itself from the monotony of office walls.   

Could you visualize yourself exerting a public relations' role in slippers on the beach? Well I did for a day, in order to ensure I keep a low profile and adhering to the dress code of the company.  After all, who would wear high heels on the fine white sands on a tropical island!

Regards,

Karishma Shanto

From Intern to Junior Supervisor

From intern to junior supervisor

Hey all,

From the last post revealing to you how I secured my public relations internship, today my blog will be mainly about my shift from intern to take the role of a junior supervisor at Odigos Guiding Services.

Three weeks after joining Odigos Team, I was requested to take charge of four students of the Hotel School of Mauritius and to assist them into their travel & tourism project at the office.  Their project included the creation of a questionnaire that would be both suited for onsite and online interviewing. The theme of doing this survey was to evaluate the profession of tour guides in Mauritius, that is, how professional are the practitioners within the tourism industry and what could be done to raise awareness of such a career.  The aim was to question visitors and professionals in the tourism industry about the standards and availability of the guiding profession in Mauritius.  In order to target many groups and individuals within the industry, the creation of an online survey was deem necessary.

I first attempted to create the survey on SurveyMonkey.com but there was a restriction of adding only ten questions in the questionnaire. Since the tour guide’ survey contained more than ten questions, the first attempt failed, resulting in a second attempt.  This particular time, I had made use of the platform eSurv.org where I had created the survey both in English and in French.  The only limits were the representations of static pages, when filling in the survey.  Images and logo were not inserted so as to ensure the questions were answered anonymously and without biased reactions. 

Duties also included follow-ups to those students who were of similar age as myself. This particular trust that Odigos had confined in me had boosted my confidence and encouraged me to perform even better. 

Would you like to tell me the thing that had boosted your confidence at work? 

 Regards,

Karishma Shanto

In the Shoes of a Job Hunter

In the Shoes of a JobHunter

Goodmorning All,

My blog today reveals about the secrecies of securing a work placement as a current graduate student.  Pursuing a career in public relations may be at the same time rewarding and challenging due to the numerous dimensions that this career and profession bring in the work arena.  From the discourse of public relations officer to communications officer, or social media coordinator, one should always consider the different possibilities and opportunities that a Job Title holds.  It was in December 2015 that I started my search for a firm where I could exert my assignment and role as a public relations intern. My first try under the compliance of the Charles Telfair Institute internship programme occurred at Cread Ltd in Mauritius, an agency responsible for the creation and designing of commercial brochures, video clippings and T.V commercials for high-branded companies, ranging from technological appliances to home furnitures.  Without much difficulty of securing an internship at Cread Ltd, I was convinced that I would contribute to the company and bring forth my knowledge as a third year Curtin student.  I had fulfilled my role as intern there for two weeks in December 2015, only to realize that this Communications Firm, was not really contributing to my professional development. As an intern, I am sure you all must have gone by the chaotic opportunities of filing databases or having printing/ scanning jobs.  Hence, my role often resulted in such works, and although I was always on the front, keen and eager to perform at my best, I would feel limitations that would result in a guilt-feeling of not performing at my highest standard.

It was during the same month that I had challenged myself to try opt for a different industry. As fascinating as the tourism industry seemed in Mauritius, I was convinced that I wanted an internship within the tourism background.  To mention that it was a festive season, during the month of December, where most companies would call off for holidays and vacations, I was right there with my cellphone and hotel chains to contact, who for most part rejected my internship requests due to the fact that they would only hire full-time and permanent individuals.  I believe that the month of December must certainly be well-known for the peak-seasons that would hence call in more staff and recruitments, and eventually I finally got a glance of a tour operator. 

Yes, I had made it!  Suggested by my sister, I had called to one of the most trained tour operator in the island and it was Odigos Guiding Services.  Established in 2011, as new as I was in the industry, it was a challenge and a blessing at the same time to work in a company that had not been here for too long.  As previously mentioned, December for sure is a season of holidays and parties, diverging from Christmas celebrations to New Year preparations, could it also mean renovations for certain businesses? Calling in, sending emails, calling in back and forth and back and forth finally got me an internship on 13th January 2016 when I was ultimately called in for an interview.  Stepping in the office seemed challengingly one of the scariest part of a young 20 year old university student, walking on her own aspirations and doubts to get a glimpse of the working world.  Humility saved me and shaped my career on this particular day!  Yes, I was asked what I could bring in for Odigos Guiding Services, and conversations about Facebook and the virtual existence of businesses were the main reasons my supervisor believed had baffled him. Struggling with tact to give his company an online existence, I would carry on giving in tips on how to keep the Facebook page of Odigos alive.  Liking your partners/ collaborators page, sharing their posts, commenting on their feeds, and the list would go on and on.  I had finally won a first battle by being honest about my Web 2.0. knowledge.  Yes, humility and honesty helped me into securing this internship.

How did you get your internship??

Please feel free to comment below.

Until next time,

See you

Karishma Shanto