Turning two Lovers’ dreams into reality with wedding knots.

The Famous quote as we say “Marriages are planned in heaven and celebrated on Earth”

At Paradise Cove Boutique Hotel, I got the opportunity to form part of the planning process of different weddings. It was a heartfelt and happy moment to witness those lovers turning into lifetime partners as legally husband and wife, creating memorable times of their lives.

As an intern of Guest Relations, I was assisting my colleagues while dealing with prospective hotel clients in planning their wedding at the hotel. Planning is said to be the mother of any successful event and also there’s a quote by Alan Lakein who says “Failing to plan is planning to fail”. It requires the wedding coordinator to deal with the future clients via mails and phone calls, if required, to plan accordingly to their choices. A wedding coordinator has to be multi-tasking at the venue as well as at the back-office in planning and finalizing the paper works for all bookings and payments.

First of all, there is a thread of emails followed by the wedding coordinator and all the necessary points are noted and filed accordingly. Legal procedures are done prior such as wedding applications. Furthermore, the prospective clients can also pre-book their activities they prefer to have on their wedding day and all the reservations will be affixed to all departments. Upon the arrival of the future bride and the groom, a meeting is fixed to confirm and alter any decisions taken and also take note any other additions to be made for the big day. And then the rest of the work goes to the coordinator whereby she will make a memo list with all the information included to inform each department concerned and their duties for the wedding day. For example, housekeeping is informed about the decorations the future couple opted for their honeymoon after marriage celebration, the kitchen is informed about which wedding cake has been selected and so on. There will also conduct meetings with the departments concerned for the smooth execution of the plan and avoid miscommunication.

The wedding day is quite on the move for the wedding coordinator and I assisted her in making the venue arrangements, floral decorations, keeping the checklists ticked with all tasks completed. We were also available for bride’s help in getting ready at the make-up room of the Spa centre. Then we accompanied the bride, walking the aisle to the wedding venue. An officer for the Civil marriage bureau is present to do the official procedures. Musicians , photographer and a video recorder were present inclusive of their selected package. The wedding went smoothly with lovely music accompanied by the musician. Later on the photographer stayed late for the wedding photo-shoot.

I felt privileged to form part of the planning and I also got the opportunity to talk to the couple. The part I appreciated the most was that I was a participant observant at the wedding. It helped me gain a real life experience as well as improving and getting better in communication skills.

I am attaching some of the pictures captured of the golden moments of different weddings, sharing their heartfelt joyous occasion.
(All approval received from the clients before using their pictures.)

By Tina Devi Halkhoree

Curtin Student - Charles Telfair Institute Campus, Mauritius

I.D. Number: 17480767

Management Cocktail Experience is always thrilling!

My experience at Paradise Cove Boutique Hotel has been very fruitful and enriching. I could not have thought of a better place than that as I was warm-welcomed by the front office department and its members. I was well-groomed by the Frontline manager and have gained help and support from my Guest Relations team members of Frontline department. I was assigned to be a Guest Relations trainee of the Guest Relations Department.

One of my most favorite experiences has been the Management cocktail which is held every Wednesdays where you get the opportunities to connect personally with the guests and socialize with them. The purpose of holding the Management Cocktail weekly was an opportunity for all the departmental managers and the guest relations staff and most importantly the general manager to socialize with the external members. (Hotel clients are termed as external members/ guests at the hotel.) All the staff are to communicate with each and every guest to gather feedback of their stay as well as to take note of their recommendations to further improve the hotel service. By performing this activity by all our staff, it helps us know our external members individually and if ever they would like something to be tailored according to their preferences in their service.

Being a Curtin student, I found this platform to be a golden opportunity to practice my graduate attributes such as performing good communication skills with tourists from all around the world, having an international perspective, cultural understanding for others and also show my efficiency of working individually and as a team which fall under professional skills. I also got the chance to apply my thinking and information skills while dealing with different people of different backgrounds and cultures. It helped me enrich and broaden your knowledge while applying principles learnt in new situations. My duties and responsibilities were to conform to all the hotel standards and their 20 basic attributes yet blending in my personal touch as an individual outperforming my graduate attributes I have been exposed during my three year course.

Left side: Myself with the Guest Relations Coordinator and Right side with a staff member with traditional Indian attire.

Another highlight of the cocktail party is to introduce our variety of Mauritian specialty beverages such as rum - based cocktails inspired by our bar specialists, local house wines and also international beverages and local homemade snacks. And the surprise of the night is the local Mauritian live Sega dance by our local troupe. Its aim is to spark the holidays with fun and excitement for our external members with live entertainment and also ice breaking atmosphere to dance with other external guests. They are also taught a few steps of the typical Sega dance and introduced with the local instruments used for the performance. A Spa therapist is also present by the pool side to give the external guests a 2-3 minutes complimentary massage to relax themselves and also promote the spa services.

I would like to share a few pictures taken with approval during the Management cocktail of my experience as a Guest Relations Trainee.      

Live Sega dance Show

                                          

Managers and staff are at service of the guests.

Guests learning few steps of the Traditional Sega dance

References:

Paradise Cove Hotel,. 2016. Paradisecovehotel.Com. http://www.paradisecovehotel.com/en/album/.

Pictures used were taken and approved by the person depicted in the picture.

By Tina Devi Halkhoree

Curtin Student - Charles Telfair Institute Campus, Mauritius

I.D. Number:17480767

Attitude as a key aspect of PR

   

 According to Keith Harrell; “A positive attitude is still undeniably the most valuable asset you can ever choose to treasure. It is the most basic ingredient to every success story in this planet”[i].

In Public Relations, as in any other communication fields, you’ll be requested to adopt the right attitude according to the situation. 

 

Photo credits: Live Life Happy via Flickr

During my internship, I have had to do several phone calls. What’s the right attitude to adopt in such case? 

Let me share with you my experience and what I’ve learned. 

Some may say that this is a simple exercise whereas others might admit that it can be a perilous one too. 

You probably must have heard the saying that “Making a great first impression is imperative to becoming an influential leader”[ii]. 

“The fact is that when you first meet a person, he makes a judgment about you in approximately four seconds, and his judgment is finalized largely within 30 seconds of the initial contact”[iii]. So you do not have much time to impress this person. 

This gets even more challenging through phone calls, since your interlocutor cannot see you. He will only be able to forge his first impression through the tone you adopt. 

                                             photo credits: Sean MacEntee via Flickr

A telephone call can disturb. It can cause an interruption in an already "overscheduled” or “congested” agenda. Therefore be polite and excuse yourself for disturbing. Take the time to introduce yourself and aim at starting to build a trusting relationship with the other person on the phone though you cannot see him.

Once those courtesy steps are undergone, do not jump directly to the object of your call. Start by putting your interlocutor at ease and create a conducive environment for better communication. Remember that the way you speak over the telephone will convey the largest part of your message.

The way you answer the phone also sets the stage for the other person’s experience with you. So the way you talk will either enable you to communicate positive energy resulting in positive responses or negative energy yielding negative responses.

During my placement I tried implementing those tactics and the result was excellent. 

Before making a call, just remember that overcoming your fears and leaving your comfort zone is really important to be able to achieve your goals.

Photo credits: BK via Flickr

A telephone conversation is conversing with somebody else. As such try to be as natural as you would be in a visual conversation. Though it might seem absurd, do not hesitate to smile when the conversation invites to smiling.

---

[i] http://onlineaccesscenter.com/bmm/library1/Attitude%20is%20Everything.pdf

[ii] http://www.briantracy.com/blog/leadership-success/the-importance-of-a-first-impression-everything-counts-personal-statement/

[iii] http://www.briantracy.com/blog/leadership-success/the-importance-of-a-first-impression-everything-counts-personal-statement/

Emergency calls only

So this is the end, my last day as intern at Arcadia Travel. I must admit that even though I am thrilled to get at least one week of holiday before going back to university, I will miss Port Louis and this great team made of amazing people. They’ve taught me more about work, communication, the importance of sharing and the significance of a simple “thank you” than I could imagine.

Port-Louis is the hemisphere of work. Every corner, shop, café or alleyway is imprinted in this ambiance, it is something I’ll never forget. Obviously, anyone who knows a tiny bit about Mauritius, knows this but still being part of this working group is something else, it’s incredible.

I have learnt the real value in practice of a PR plan. It requires more than what I previously believed it did, in-depth research at all levels, concise objectives, a complete and detailed timeline and thorough evaluation amongst others. The plan doesn’t even feel like hard work when the goal is so very concrete.

But as promised, the internship proved to be a lifetime experience. I learnt valuable lessons about public relations, I created numerous connections with people that helped me and that might help me later on and I acquired the very unique skill of working with colleagues which is not simple I assure you. There’s a whole list of experiences that helped me grow personally and professionally and I will be forever grateful for this opportunity.

But for now, I am packing all the paperwork in a pretty little yellow plastic pocket and enjoying my unique and final week of holidays.

x

Gaëlle

Be willing to do what’s hard now to enjoy what’s beautiful later!

Hello everyone,

I think that it will so peculiar to be back being a normal student now: over crawling with assignments! Besides, my internship has finally come to an end and is unfortunately over since Monday. I guess I am happy it’s over because I finally finished the twenty days as required in the unit outline and sad because I am going to miss those working days though some of them were quite exhausting.

However, I must say that I have learnt a lot through these 20 days of internship. You might say that 20 days is far too trifling for an internship in the PR field but trust me, I have learnt and experienced a lot through these days. Besides, it was a real pleasure to work at PROAKTIV PR and to work with its beautiful people. They have welcomed me in their team and share their knowledge of the PR field with me and I think that this was the best part of the internship. Learning from experienced people is always best.  

You cannot imagine the number of projects that I worked on and how many time spent on doing these but what I know is I did it with every little bit of motivation that I had and enjoyed the results. Adding to that the number of things that needs to be written and proof read such as press releases, mails, official mails, press invitations, quotations, etc... But they say hard work always pays and furthermore, practice makes perfect! So let's work hard now today to enjoy what’s beautiful later! 

However, I can tell you that by now I have learnt that the working work is not always tough as I first imagine it would be. But as you may know, every little things has both good sides and bad sides. You just have to stay focus, do your research work well and meet the deadlines. Besides, you just have to take the best of it, make the most of it and take it positively.

I would like to thank you all for reading and sharing your personal views with me. In some cases, it has been very entertaining reading your posts and your experiences at your workplace and finding that we happened to have the same issues, in others, it has been more helpful and useful for my day to day routine. 

It was a real pleasure to share my personal experience with you people.

Cordially,

Keshya S. Rassen.

Press Clippings / Last day

Hello everyone,

It's now my fourth blogpost and I have arrived at the end of my internship (only 2 days left). I feel quite sad to leave as I have came to met awesome colleagues who are now very good friends and also leaving with a lot of useful experiences which will certainly help me in the future. In the other hand I'm happy to leave as waking up so early every morning was such a pain.

One of the main task I was responsible for my internship was to read newspapers! Every morning as I arrive at work, the office clerk hands me on the daily morning newspapers and ask me to read. I thought it was a very easy task and that it would not take me much time, but it wasn't!

Newspapers collected for the month of August

Firstly let me explain the purpose of this task. Immedia being mainly an event and Public Relations agency, for each event that Immedia organises or participates we are asked to collect each newspaper articles that appears in the press so as to follow up the public awareness of the event. Secondly, as a PR agency, our main client  (a telecommunication company) asks us to collect articles which are in relations to them, their competitors, and other things related to telecommunications such as the government and other stakeholders.

The easiest part is to search for the newspapers articles and then take down the page numbers on where they are located. Then my colleague scans the desired articles and sends them back to me where I then store them in a document. After each week then, I am to fill the press review document and put up remarks about the article. In a week I can have about 20-30 newspaper articles to read and analyse. 

I then remember one of our PR assignments which was to collect media clippings in newspapers and magazines about a particular subject and summarize it and this is where I found that it was very useful where I first said that it would not serves me later.

Below is an example of a newspaper article that is collected for the client -

Weekly Magazine - Emtel article

 For only one month, it is about 100 newspapers read, scan, and commented. Despite that, it is an interesting task as it has direct relation to public relations and it is interesting to know what is happening in the country. In my opinion I see this as using a PR agency as an "intelligence" agency, not in terms of spying, but in terms of knowing what competitors are doing so as to do better than them and this is how a PR agency or department is important for companies like this. 

It was a pleasure to share my internship experiences within the blogposts. Thank you for reading and do not forget to comment and share your views and opinions.

Regards,

Mehdi Bundhun

We are important because we are mediators

After a month working at FSB Marketing, I came to realize the importance of having a PR person in a company instead of just having a marketing person to market the product or brand.

While a marketer will be able to design strategies to create brand awareness, visibility and increase sales volume there will be the important element of mutual understanding lacking.

A PR person is there not only to communicate the company`s values and image to the different stakeholders but also to communicate the views of the stakeholders to the company.

This point is important when dealing with NGOs which is what I have been doing lately. I got to meet with around 5 different NGOs in the past month and of course each had a different agenda. So our collaboration with each of them had to be designed in a way that would benefit both parties. This mutual benefit cannot exist unless there is a two way flow of communication since it is not about just telling them what we want to achieve but instead to work together to achieve their goals and ours together.

People that work for the company will usually only have the interest of the company in mind and may forget to even inquire about those of the NGO. However, we as PR practitioners have the required training to negotiate by keep a continuous two way flow of information.

This was not only true for NGOs, but for nearly all the other people that the company have or initiated a relationship with. Whether it was briefing a designer or recruiting a model for an advert, this two way communication model had to be maintained to ensure that both parties were adequately informed and satisfied with the collaboration.

So while the importance of good writing skills is often stressed in the PR industry, we must not forget the other soft skills that are required for the negotiation part of this career path.

These skills are mainly being able to listen to the other party, understanding different point of views, keeping an open mind and also communicating this information to the other party in the correct manner.

As PR practitioners we are the intermediaries through which all the information passes and it is our job to always ensure that the right information is absorbed and then conveyed correctly.

Whether you are working for a corporate or a communication agency let me know if there are instances when you felt like this mediator role was really prominent.

Also if you are having trouble putting the two way symmetrical communication model in action, have a look at this: http://www.academia.edu/1475647/Pushing_the_river_upstream_two-way_public_relations_and_how_to_do_it 

Keep enjoying your placement,

Vaneeda.

All great work requires daily practice and endless patience!

Hello everyone,

I hope that you all had a great week doing your internship. Mine was just as frenetic as you can imagine and it has been a very long week I should say before, during and after the recent event that my company was organising.

In my previous blog post, I was telling you that we were just one day before the event and we were still busy doing call-backs for journalists, we were still updating the files to put in the pen drives and putting stickers on the pen drives boxes as you can see in the picture below. 

As a PR intern, I must say that this experience was really amazing and priceless. It gave me the opportunity to show to my employers, one of my main talents: being a versatile person. I could do anything if I was well briefed.

In fact, at my workplace, I could have been left with only doing basic things which are known to be very cliché such as photo copies, make coffee, and so on. But the thing is, I was considered as an employee and I was given real responsibilities which I took very seriously.

Furthermore, I realised something during the event. To my opinion, I understood that we, as PR students and later on as PR agents, cannot and, will never again, rely on journalists’ promises to assist to events. Before the event, we have spent considerable time making so many call-backs to the journalists every day for one week prior to the event to see if they have got the e-Press Invitations and to confirm their presence.

We continued to phone them in the morning of the event to make them remember to come by and they confirmed. Then again, we phoned them on arriving to the site to explain them the road and they would still say that they were on the road coming to the event0! But as the event went through, out of 15, only two journalists made the effort to come. I really cannot understand them. What’s the use of confirming their presence and do not come later? I think that this is the only thing that went wrong. I was really disappointed but what to do? It was one risk to take.

After the event, we had so much things to do such as calling back journalists again for the photo people and reading loads of newspaper to see if there was a maximum media coverage. And I can tell you there was - though journalists did not attend the event!

Moreover, I think as a PR student and as most of us said in our first blog posts, we were scared to make phone calls and working as PR agents in the real world, I think that by now, we are used to the daily quota of work. Besides, I think that though we have been going on through a lot lately with work pressure and on-going courses - meaning on-going assignments too! -, I think that we have been taking our roles very seriously and with countless patience. This perseverance and patience have made me see things differently in the workplace. It has helped me to broaden my knowledge and made me acquire hands-on experience especially during the event. As the famous quote says it all:

“All great work requires daily practice and endless patience!”

Enjoy being a PR Intern.

Stay tuned for my next blog post,

Keshya S. Rassen.