Hotels, PR & Hotel PR – in a nutshell

Let me start by saying thank goodness it is Friday, the acronym does not truly give justice to how thankful I am. Don’t get me wrong, the internship is going great - but this first month has been a shock to the system to say the least. Monday to Friday, waking up at the crack of dawn, sitting in traffic, the 9 hour work day, more traffic – absolutely exhausting! It takes getting used to, coffee does help and weekends are a godsend. 

Working in a hotel takes some getting used to too. You realise in a matter of hours that you must make the mental transition from past guest to employee, or ‘associate’ as we are known in Marriott. My expectations of hotel Public Relations have been warped as well. When I applied for this job, I was told during my interview that the PR was part of the Sales and Marketing department, no real surprise at the time but once I started, I soon realised Sales, Marketing and PR all blend together – In other Marriott hotels it is also known as Marcom (marketing communications). The PR team mainly deals with the hotel’s advertising and promotions.

Hotel PR combines with advertising and promotion to generate awareness for the hotel or it services, create demand for its services, and increase its perceived value – the latter being absolutely key.  This includes media releases, promotion booklets, the website, blog and other SNS’s, even the key cards – all of which have to support your hotel’s business positioning and marketing objectives. My boss’s first bit of advice was ‘stick to the guidelines and policies’ – Hotel PR is a huge responsibility as you are the voice of the hotel – no one else other than PR personnel have the right to speak on behalf of the hotel publicly, so when you do make sure you get it right. Stating the obvious, For Marriott, it is all about the brand value and maintaining the high standards that come with it.

So from my first 3 weeks, I have come up with a brief list of what you need to know about interning in hotel PR, let’s say the 5 basics shall we, which are as follows:-

·         It is not limited solely to issuing press releases and doing media clippings – definitely not. They were in my initial ‘what to expect’ list. Media clippings I do daily but no press releases in these first 3 weeks. Instead I have been doing write-ups for their promotion booklets, designing Christmas e-cards, and most recently making ‘No Durians Allowed’ signs.

·         As much as you want to make all advertising and promotions sound as appealing as possible, it is essential you TELL THE TRUTH. Yes company and personal ethics are involved, but the whole deal of marketing (and marketing hospitality in particular) is that your product needs to be as good as you say it is.

·         CSR is a biggy – For the big players like Marriott, it is extremely important to give back to the community, and they make sure they do all year around in their ‘Spirit to Serve’ community initiatives. At the moment I am helping with their Christmas Wish Tree Project, which supports children and adults with physical and mental disabilities, orphans, and underprivileged families in Miri.

·         Know your SNS’s – as a member of gen Y, your boss will expect you to be tech-savvy and know everything there is to know about digital media platforms. If you haven’t tweeted or instagram’d before, I suggest you start and know the power of hashtags. I was put in charge of setting up and maintaining the hotel’s Instagram – being totally unfamiliar with the platform prior to this. My advice if you’re faced with the same situation is to research first, check how other hotels use Instagram, remember to hashtag, and have fun with it.  

·         And lastly, don’t start the internship with the expectation of having work to do all day, 5 days a week. You will find that there are often days where you have nothing to do and you are just sitting around waiting to clock out at 5pm. I suggest headphones and good music, and get to know the software your company uses. For example, CorelDraw is the software of choice here for designing everything from their promo booklets to their company envelopes.

Obviously these are only based on my experience so far – it may vary from hotel to hotel, hospitality to consultancy - but the essential elements are there.

Rachel Salinah Jackson

7e0b8041/15624958

Curtin Miri