PR Internship Reflective Blog

Welcome to PR Internship - YOUR opportunity to put everything you have learned over the past years at university into practice and to get a thorough insight into what public relations is like "in the real world". This Blog allows you to reflect on your experiences, share insights with other students across campuses and to possibly give advice and support to fellow students. Please also see http://http://printernship-reflections2.blogspot.com.au/ for more reflections.

Sunday, July 4, 2010

My First Week at Air Mauritius - Your Preferred Leisure Airline

This has been my first week of my PR internship at Air Mauritius in the Communications and Corporate Affairs Department. I must say that this is just the beginning of a new chapter for me as I have thought I would be able to survive the first day of work. It has been a great experience so far and I am learning how big corporations manage their public relations. The people I work with are very warm and have already made me feel a part of their organisation. Before I left Perth to come to Mauritius 2 weeks back, I mentioned to Katharina how nervous I was to start this placement as I have never worked before and I did not know what to expect. Katharina told me to relax and just give it my best because it is not as bad as well expect it to be. Well, she was right!

This week my role was to publish a daily news update on what is happening in the aviation and tourism sector because this is important to Air Mauritius. Information such as what other airlines are undergoing, changes in Airports around the world, Tourism figures, oil prices and various exchange rates are what were included in the updates. This news update is uploaded to the Air Mauritius intranet which is called 'Share Point' and it is also sent on email to the CEO, Chairman, senior management, all crew members and outstation offices such as Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Mumbai, Milan, South Africa, Kenya etc...

On Tuesday, the CEO, Mr. Manoj Ujodha decided to host a press conference to all shareholders and senior management about the financial performance of the company for April 2009 to March 2010. I had to prepare a power point presentation which was presented by Mr. Ujodha. The PR department was working under pressure as the decision to host the press conference was made on Tuesday at 1 PM and the conference was held on Wednesday 9 AM. It was short notice.

I hope the rest of my time at Air Mauritius is fun and interesting just like the first week.

I wish all those who are starting their placements all the best and stay positive!

1 comment:

Thabang said...: Hi!!!Mansha,
It is always frightening to do something for the first time, like what you said; you were frightened during your first day at your placement. i hope now you are ok, you have get used to work and your colleagues at Air Mauritius. It is a good thing to have the external and internal relations with your stakeholders while you are in PR industry, publishing that news update and also emailing it to the employees and other people in the company shows that Air Mauritius is taking into consideration their employees and it has good internal relations with them as shown by that communications which is good thing for the PR person.
I hope that you will not give the media a free ticket for covering your events, it is said some airlines can give fight ticket as a token for appreciation to the media for covering their events.
Enjoy ur stay at Air Mauritius,
Thabang, L.U.C.T. Malaysia.; Sunday, July 11, 2010 1:54:00 AM