QTIC Portfolio

A press release is an official statement delivered to members of the news media for the purpose of providing information, an official statement, or making an announcement.

Throughout my internship I was given the task to write several media releases. The purpose of these was to further develop my ability to pick the most important parts of large amounts of information, write concisely and stay to the ‘press release style’. It was vital for me to write formally and professionally as I was representing QTIC. All of the press releases I wrote were sent out to journalists with little to no changes made by my supervisor, Taneil. See below for a ‘before and after’ example.

Press Release Examples

Young Professionals Mentoring Program- First version

Published Version

Differences in 2 attempts

Taneil heard back from more mentees and mentors who had done the program
previously, after I had written the first version, so she wanted me to incorporate a few
more quotes to help promote the program.
I needed to introduce the mentees more before I used their quote.

Queensland Tourism Awards Media Release

Queensland Tourism People’s Choice Award

General Feedback

Overall Taneil, my supervisor was very impressed with the quality and conversational style of writing.

Some general tips she gave me included:

Make sure you stay in the same tense when writing.
Don’t waffle- keep writing concise and to the point.
Always use the word ‘however’ instead of ‘but’- sounds way more professional and has
the same meaning.
It’s okay to alter quotes to make them flow better, as long as you are not changing the
meaning behind them.
Always try and link back to social media.
Capitalise every single word in headings except for joining words (e.g. And).
QTIC write dates like this: Friday 27 September- No ‘th’ and date first not month.
Use ‘;’ instead of ‘–‘.
Even though a press release is factual, you still want to ensure you are telling a story.
Hook people in at the start with interesting information so people read the press release.
If it is boring Journalists won’t read it and you will not receive free media.

Mature Aged Event

I was asked last minute to help out with the Mature Aged Event run by Ruquaiyah Buksh, Workforce Development Project Officer.

What is the Mature Aged Event?

The QTIC Tourism and Hospitality Mature Aged Program is a government funded event which aims to promote inclusiveness in the workforce, enabling people to stay connected and contribute socially and economically.

The project provides opportunities for seniors aged 55 years and over to participate in employment, training, lifelong learning and volunteering opportunities. It also supports the Queensland Government’s Advancing Queensland: an age-friendly community grants program, respect and social inclusion goal, ensuring that employees are hired based on skills with all backgrounds valued, and appreciated for the skills and knowledge they can offer.

The integration of seniors in the workforce promotes:

Inter-generational problem solving.
Increase in the connection between older and younger staff members.
Good employers will demonstrate the value of having mature people in the workforce.

My Role Included:

Helping set up the function room.
Greeting and liaising with function staff and guests.
Talking about the mature aged program with guests.
Staging QTIC advertising.
Handing out event information.
Getting social media consent forms.
Making name badges.
Taking photos of the event to be used in social media posts and press releases.
Registering guests online (acts as proof to the government that the event was successful
making them more likely to give QTIC more grants in the future).

What did I learn?

My involvement with this event was very last minute so I did not have a lot of time to prepare and research what the event was about. The event felt quite rushed and disorganised causing a few issues to pop up throughout the day. I knew there was no time for my supervisors to explain things to me so I used my initiative and problem solving skills to manage the issues. For example, the WiFi wasn’t working for one of the guests so instead of asking my supervisors (who also didn’t know the WiFi password) I went straight to reception and spoke to the hotel staff who assisted me.

Feedback

Once this event had finished, my supervisor Taneil told me that she has been very impressed with my communication skills and that I am the best intern QTIC has ever had.

Throughout my internship I had to communicate with both internal and external staff, Queensland Tourism businesses, QTIC Board members, journalists and government ministers.

The types of information included:

Quotes
Program updates
Event details
Competition details

Some of this communication was done face-to-face in meetings, however most of it was done through email. Examples of which can be seen below.

After speaking to Ainsley regarding the Prize for Innovation contacts, I had to go through all of the nominations and pick one that was located rurally to feature in my press release. QTIC want to ensure that all businesses in QLD know about them, not just the ones in urban areas. Using a rural business not only creates excitement for the event but also promotes QTIC to companies that may not know that much about us. Once I had chosen which businesses would be good to mention, I reached out to them via email and asked them questions about their business and why they entered the Prize for Innovation contest.

Entrant Responses

People’s Choice Press Release

This press release was relevant to the businesses who have entered the competition. In an effort to gain free media, it was my job to send the release out to all journalists in the same regions as the nominees. The process can be seen below.

1- Go through nominations by region

2- Search through media contacts appropriate to the region and send emails to each region separately i.e All gold coast and then a separate one for North QLD.

It was also important to make sure these emails were sent separately so I could personalise the message attached to the email. See below for examples.

Feedback

Whenever I was emailing people external to QTIC I would not only be representing QTIC, but Taneil personally as I used her email. It was very rewarding to know that she trusted me with this responsibility and after week 1 of my internship, gave me full control over what was sent, and didn’t request for an email to be checked before I sent it.

In order to write press releases, create EDM’s and communicate with QTIC staff and members it was vital for me to be up-to-date on all the events and programs QTIC were working on. To do this, I had to research every topic I wrote about and every event I attended to ensure I could maintain a conversation and write factual information.

Examples of my research can be seen below:

Research Examples

Google Analytics- Choosing the right AdWords to increase SEO for QTIC

Google AdWords is one of the quickest ways to generate return on investment. The AdWords program enables businesses to set a budget for advertising and only pay when people click the ads. The ad service is largely focused on keywords. Businesses can instantaneously benefit by driving hyper-targeted traffic to their website through selecting the best key words to describe their company.

I used my phone and searched a multitude of different words and acronyms in association with QTIC to find out what most people are searching when they are trying to find out information. Words that came to my mind are listed below with details regarding where the search was located has been included. This will be used to help determine and update QTIC’s google analytic account to ensure the right AdWords are being used to increase SEO.

The Salute to Excellence Awards is an event run by QTIC and recognises Year 11 and 12 students that are undertaking or have completed vocational education and training in tourism, food and beverage or cookery. The Awards highlight the importance of promoting vocational education and training among secondary schools across the state.

This event was held in July 2019 and QTIC needed a video to be made promoting the awards, encouraging more students to apply next year. I was tasked the job of sifting through the 100’s of images and footage from the night and creating a template that will be sent out to our outsourced company, Big Planet Media, to put together.

Salute to Excellence Video Template

Feedback

I really enjoyed this task because I was able to use my creative skills and my experience from making videos for uni to practice. I didn’t have any sort of guideline to base the template off and was given total control by Taneil to do what I thought would be best. Overall Taneil was very impressed with the outcome and sent the package through to the company without making any changes.

My supervisor, Taneil had two interviews and Ruqaiyah, the Workforce Development Project Officer for QTIC had 3 interviews they had recorded using their voice memos app on their phones from 2 separate events held by QTIC. It was my job to listen and scribe the interviews so they could use certain parts as quotes for future press releases and event promotion.

Examples of my work can be seen below:

On numerous occasions I was given the task of proofreading documents created by QTIC. Some of these documents included the 2019 Annual Review and the Queensland Tourism Digital Workforce Development and Training Plan. I used Adobe Reader to make comments as I read for Taneil to look back on, so she could make improvements where necessary.

My Role as editor included

Correcting spelling
Correcting Grammar
Correcting Punctuation
Sentence re-structuring (re-wording sentences)
Identifying document structural issues
Identifying readability issues

Editing Examples

Proof reading QTIC’s AGM

An annual general meeting (AGM) is a meeting of the general membership of an organisation. These organisations include membership associations and companies with shareholders. These meetings may be required by law or by the constitution, charter, or by-laws governing the body.

I had to go through 8 of the AGU and ensure all the content made sense and is consistent with the others. Some of the information had been copied and pasted from last years editions so it was essential for me to ensure all the dates were correct.

I also did normal proofing such as looking for spelling, grammar and structural issues.

Grammarly

Grammarly is an online grammar checking, spell checking, and plagiarism detection platform for the English language. If I was unsure of something, I would use this software to double check any spelling, grammar or punctuation issues.

EDM’s are a tool used by businesses to inform their target public (TP) of important information regarding their brand, business or products. If used correctly, it is a great way of building and maintaining a trusting relationship between the business and the TP. They allow businesses to model a one-way communication approach, allowing them to control the message they are sending and measure its success.

QTIC use a program called ‘Mailchimp’ to create their EDM’s. This allows them to create emails based off the one structure and template to ensure consistency and a seamless, professional look. Having the one template for all emails also helps increase business recognition among TP. All the EDM’s I have created through Mailchimp have been sent out with minimum editing from my supervisor, Taneil.

Mailchimp Drafting

Mailchimp also allows compainies to monitor the sucess of an EDM by tracking metrics such as how many people opened the email, clicked on the links, unsubscribed, etc. These metrics help guide the business and give them insight into what they are and are not doing well.

Below is an example of one of the EDM’s I created with its Mailchimp report attached.

Membership Benefits EDM

Membership Benefits Mailchimp Report

Below, a before and after feedback example has been included to demonstrate the kind of editing that would be suggested by Taneil.

Mature Aged Event Attempt 1

Mature Aged Event Published

Feedback:

She helped me fix the formatting issue with the text (we were having issues getting it out
of bold).
Break up the text a bit so readers don’t feel overwhelmed with information.
Add headings.

Winner of Tickets EDM Attempt 1

#QTA2019 Winner Announcement!

It is with great excitement that we would like to announce, Ronda Green, from Araucaria Ecotours has won 2 tickets to attend the Queensland Tourism Awards held on November 8 on the Sunshine Coast.

Whilst running events, social media, conducting and writing reports on ecological research, Ronda is also chair of the National Body Wildlife Tourism Australia and the Scenic Rim branch of Wildlife Queensland.

Due to work commitments, Ronda will be unable to attend but has gifted the tickets to her son, Daniel who will represent her at the awards.

“Applying for the awards has been valuable in focusing attention on each aspect of our business, reviewing what we already do well and what we could improve on, and crystallizing what our major differences are to other tour operations,” Ms Green said.

Ms Green continued, “Attending the QTA function is a great night out, a chance to meet and communicate with others in the tourism industry and to join in the excitement and anticipation of the announcements. I have in the past enjoyed applying for the awards and attending the evenings and intend to do so again in the future”.

Here at QTIC we value our members and don’t want you to miss out on attending this event. For more information visit: http://www.queenslandtourismawards.com.au/

Winner of Tickets EDM Published

Winner of 2x Free Tickets to #QTA2019 Announced!

It is with great excitement that we announce, Ronda Green, from Araucaria Ecotours as the winner of the two free tickets to attend the Queensland Tourism Awards (QTA) held on November 8 at the Sunshine Coast.

Whilst running events, social media, conducting and writing reports on ecological research, Ronda is also chair of the National Body Wildlife Tourism Australia and the Scenic Rim branch of Wildlife Queensland.

Due to work commitments, Ronda will be unable to attend herself however has gifted the tickets to her son(,) Daniel, who will represent her at the awards.

“Applying for the awards has been valuable in focusing attention on each aspect of our business, reviewing what we already do well and what we could improve on, and crystallising what our major differences are to other tour operations,” Ms Green said.

Ms Green continued, “Attending the QTA function is a great night out, a chance to meet and communicate with others in the tourism industry and to join in the excitement and anticipation of the announcements. I have enjoyed applying for the awards and attending the event in the past and intend to do so again in the future”.

QTA is always a wonderful event which highlights those exceeding in the tourism industry. If you have already entered submission are due Monday, August 19.

This year the QTA Gala Ceremony will be held on Friday, November 8 at Novotel Twin Waters, Sunshine Coast. To keep up to date with the event and to be notified of early bird tickets keep an eye out on the QTA Facebook page and website.

Feedback

Use a more recent image.
Link back to social media and QTIC Website.
Have the date of event more obvious.

Other Published EDM’s can be seen below.

Accreditation EDM

Indigenous Forum EDM

Workforce Development EDM

I was given the task to go through over 450 of QTIC’s contacts and update them as necessary. Over time my supervisor Taneil had created a folder full of contacts that needed to be removed from QTIC’s contact list.

Reasons for removal included:

Contact is no longer with the company or have moved to a different role.
Contact is no longer a QTIC member.
Non-active email address.
Email can no longer be delivered.

Why is it important for QTIC to have an updated and current contact list?

For any business, communication is key. Ensuring direct communication can be made with QTIC’s target public, stakeholders and government officials is vital to the success of the company. QTIC is known as the ‘voice of tourism’. Having an updated contact list ensures their voice is heard.

I documented the deactivation process so QTIC could use it as a guideline to use when teaching another staff member how to do it. It is quite a lengthy process which can be confusing and easy to forget so having a guideline to look back on not only confirms my understanding but is useful for myself and others to look back to.

Deactivation Process

1- Open QTIC’s email and CRM account.

2- Go to the folder that has all the contacts that require action categorised.

3- Read email and see if it is a contact or account (account= business) Contact=person) Go to CRM and choose accordingly.

4- Search the name of the person or business.

5- This is what the page will look like if they are not a business. Donna West was not a business therefore she was deactivated immediately.

6- This is what it looks like if the contact is associated with a business.

7- If they are a business, look to see if they are still a member.

8- If they are a member and have multiple contacts, the email can be deactivated. If they were a member and only had one contact I would flag the email and leave for my supervisor to double check. If the business is no longer a member the email can be deactivated.

9- Press Deactivate.

10- Now the contact will say ‘inactive’.

11- Move email into deactivated contact folder.

I had to ensure all the text on the QTIC website was consistent in font and size, as well as ensuring all the reports were linked correctly. To do this I had to download the file from QTIC’s SharePoint data base and upload it into QTIC’s CRM in order to get a link that would work on the website. I created a guide to show how to edit the website for Taneil and future interns to use. This can be seen below.

1- Log onto the QTIC website.