Just one of the team!

Week two over, and a total of four jam-packed, information (and coffee) filled days have been completed at my internship!

On Thursday the team and I were invited to an exclusive workshop by OneEighty Marketing on "Internet Marketing in the Tourism Industry". The seminar which commenced at 9am involved an engaging presentation and discussion on topics such as search engine optimisation, search engine marketing, retargeting, website design and graphics, branding and reputation management.

What I found interesting was seeing business and targeting publics from a marketing and paid perspective - whether it is a $1 pay per click Google ad or a $40,000 responsive and mobile website design. As opposed to PR, where free tools such as the media are used to gain exposure and portray a consistent brand/identity/image (three topics that I could spend hours discussing the boundaries of thanks to the Corporate PR unit), marketing focuses on paid techniques that force the coverage of the brand and the current campaigns.

After a solid four hours of useful information, lunch arrived. Free food! I could honestly get used to the PR industry.

Friday, day four, bought me back to reality as my first task of the day was to print, separate and name-order all 190 attendees of next week's Parliament House Function into card holders (coverage in next week’s blog). Tasks like this are the realisation of the minor details that are involved in the management and execution of events that the glamorous event-managers in the papers forget to mention!

A few hours, and a few more papercuts later and my day had turned into one I'd compare to Christmas Day. The brochures and prizes were delivered from over 70 generous “Trust the Tick” accredited businesses for display at the upcoming Caravan and Camping show. I rifled through packages, brochures, prize vouchers (yes, prizes!!) and letters of thanks and sorted them into five Regional Tourism Organisations based on their location. Although I tended to doubt how much small businesses involved themselves in PR related techniques, this task itself proved the lengths at which companies are willing to go to for free publicity, or in this case, their brochures and information displayed as part of TCWA’s stand at the event. PR working its magic first-hand!

As Catherine Archer and the other PR lecturers drilled into many of our heads, grammar is everything. To emphasise the importance of this, my internship supervisor assigned me the task of researching the preferred and correct terminology for various common terms used in TCWA’s policy documents, media releases and workshop sessions and summarise them in the Corporate Style Guide I had finalised the week prior. I’ve now come to the realisation that there’s NO room for error and it almost becomes a laughing matter in the office when we receive “important” documents that are SO grammatically incorrect.  

From what I have seen so far the PR and Tourism industries are non-stop. The familiar sound of emails arriving to team members in the office, whilst phone calls from confused clients or "catch ups" (coffee and a lunch date) are arranged with potential clients. The reading, re-reading, and more re-reading is conducted of documents that are to be distributed to the media, and research on upcoming policies, acts and procedure changes is just one of the small tasks expected of the team.

Stay tuned for coverage of my involvement on behalf of TCWA at the Parliament House Function and Caravan & Camping Show events next week.

Olivia Buck
PR Intern @ Tourism Council WA