Reflection

Hello,

My campaign placement at Hunter Tourism has come to an end and it is therefore time for reflection - what I have done, what I have learned, what I have liked and disliked and what I would change.

As I previously said, my work on the HRDRI was really good in the first few weeks, where I was able to get a real idea about the PR side of things through tasks such as: updating the media and stake holder data bases, assisting in setting up the launch of the campaign, writing and sending out thank you letters to those who participated in the launch, preparing pitches for media outlets and sourcing relevant 'tourist' type activities within the Hunter Region. However, after the first few weeks, things seemed to slow down a lot with the HRDRI and I found myself having less and less to do with it - for a week or two I was assisting with Corroboree and other tasks which came through the office. For my last few working days there, I was given the task of preparing a program plan for the HRDRI - which was good PR experience in itself.

I really liked being able to meet so many different people from such varying roles within the tourism industry. The best opportunity for this came during my first week when I attended the launch of the HRDRI and was able to meet people from Tourism NSW, Hunter Valley Gardens, politicians and owners of the surrounding wine estates. Furthermore, I really enjoyed working with the people in the HRTO office - there were a variety of characters there who each brought a lot of really good qualities to the job and the office. As I said earlier, I enjoyed feeling like part of the PR team and feeling like I was actually doing some PR work of substance which would come in handy later on.

I disliked some days of my work experience there - this was mostly when the team had other big events on and I wasn't getting any work on the HRDRI at all and was instead given menial sorts of tasks for other events or other unrelated work. This annoyed me a bit as I felt as though I wasn't really learning anything for a few days. During this time, I wondered why the position was put forward (as I voiced a few posts ago) and was wishing I had accepted another placement I was offered (putting together a patient information day from start to finish - which would have been a challenge but also an excellent experience). Although, in the long run, I am grateful for my time at Hunter Tourism.

It was only last week that I realised how much I learned during my campaign placement. I had applied for a casual job at a small, local PR firm and was surprised one day to get a phone call from the director of the firm. She was following up the application I had submitted (which contained details of my placement at HRTO) and we had a short phone interview. During the time, she asked me exactly what I had done at Hunter Tourism - this was where I surprised myself - and I was able to rattle off a whole bunch of impressive sounding things (no lies at all). After I had my little spiel about the placement she asked me to send across some work and then come in for an interview the following week. I included some of the work I had done at Hunter Tourism. The next week I came out of our face to face interview with the job! It was then that I had my little ephinany about how valuable my time at Hunter Tourism had been.

Overall, I'm not sure I would change anything - I certainly had my ups and downs with HRTO but definately now know how worth while it was. It is hard to say whether or not I would have had a better experience somewhere else - I guess that's something I will never know and should therefore just be content with what I have learned from working on the HRDRI campaign at Hunter Tourism!

Oh and you can view my friend Gemma's blog at:
http://www.gemmahulsingcmns3290.blogspot.com/
Gemma had a really interesting experience working on this years Cultural Awakenings Festival

That's all!

Results and Evaluation of HRDRI

Hi again!

For the duration of my placement I was under the impression that the evaluation stage of the HRDRI would take place in the final week of my placement (and conclude during that week or one or two after). However, I just got an email back from Kate at Hunter Tourism who has informed me that there won't be any results until March 2008 - which makes the situation a little awkward for me. In the mean time though (mostly for the purpose of the case study assignment) I'm going to conduct some of my own research into the successes/failures of the HRDRI. I have already found evidence from the APEC weekend which shows that tourism in the Hunter Region is up as a result of the HRDRI advertising! Below is an article from ABC News which demonstrates the increased tourist flow to the Hunter:

Hunter cashed up after APEC escapees' invasion

Hunter Tourism says more than 20,000 people travelled to the Hunter Valley region for the APEC long weekend.

Sydneysiders trying to avoid the city's APEC lock-down spent more than $3 million over the three days, with cafes, restaurants and cellar doors experiencing one of their busiest weekends of the year.

Hunter Tourism chief executive officer Andrew Fletcher says tourism operators across the region experienced record bookings.

"It was a boom weekend and the pleasing thing is that it wasn't just the Hunter Valley ... but right across the Hunter from Lake Macquarie through to Barrington Tops and into the Upper Hunter," he said.

"It was very hard to find a bed on Friday and Saturday nights just gone."

You can view the article properly here: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/09/10/2028612.htm

The best I can do at the moment is keep researching and examining the advertising which was carried out - from there I might be able to make some reasonably accurate predictions about the outcome of the campaign.

That's all for now!