CAP220 PR Campaign Plan Book

Running head: PUBLIC RELATIONS CAMPAIGN 1

Andrew Najm

CAP 220-04

Public Relations Campaign for Hospitality and Tourism Management Department

PUBLIC RELATIONS CAMPAIGN 2

Table of Contents

Introduction………………………………………………………………….. 3

Secondary Research………………………………………………………….. 5

Primary Research…………………………………………………………….. 11

Objectives/Strategies/Tactics………………………………………………… 17

Budget/Evaluation/Timeline…………………………………………………. 23

Appendix……………………………………………………………………... 29


Public Relations Campaign for Hospitality and Tourism Management Department

Introduction

Mike Sciarini, Professor and Department Chair of the Department of Hospitality &

Tourism Management (HTM), came into class on Jan 27, 2016 to talk to us about a problem/

opportunity he wanted the class to explore. GVSU is no longer trying to expand in number of

students, but is instead attempting to grow their programs and majors. Being that HTM is not the

most sought after major at GVSU due to the more popular and mainstream majors, Mike wants

us to assist his department in getting their desired number of students. The goal of our campaign

is to assist the department in their future success in whatever way determined. This project is

important because the HTM department fears that there may be a large drop off of students in the

HTM major in the next few years. Many of the students in the program are upper classmen

which means there is a need for a steady flow of new students in the program. The reason why

HTM only has 500-550 students currently is not fully known. It is not a capacity limit but instead

seems to be more of a lack of interest/awareness. For that reason, it was decided that the main

objective of the campaign is to raise awareness of the HTM program in order to recruit new

students and maintain the amount of current students.

The HTM program has many strengths; faculty members are heavily engaged in the

HTM industry, class sizes are small, there are 5 HTM oriented clubs on campus, there are many

committed alumni, and campus is located downtown- a place many students love to have their

classes. There is also a program called The Disney Program, where students can get real life

HTM experience at a Disney park. This program has had big success at GVSU and many

students remain interested. There are also study abroad opportunities for students enrolled in


HTM. Along with the many strengths comes a few weaknesses that Mike Sciarini was hesitant to

share. Those include a lack of balance across emphasis areas, unfamiliarity with the new

Recreation and Leisure Management emphasis, and a lack of student awareness. Most students

with the HTM major did not enter GVSU with the HTM major declared, but instead switched to

it from either Undeclared or another major (M. Sciarini, personal communication, January 27,

2016).

In the remainder of this campaign we hope to increase the awareness and recruitment of

students to the HTM program at GVSU. After the campaign there should be more students

curious about the program as well as a possible influx of students in the following semesters. The

methods used to achieve our goals will be described in detail in the rest of this paper.


SECONDARY RESEARCH


Methodology

The research for this secondary research paper was conducted using the Grand Valley

State University’s Summon database. No specific database was chosen; instead the entirety of

GVSU’s database was used to search for relevant information. Many keywords were used. These

keywords included: students, attract, recruit, major, and choose. Other searches included: “How

students choose a major”, “why majors are unpopular, “how to recruit students into a major”,

“why certain majors fail”, and “why students choose Hospitality and Tourism Management”.

There were many additional searches and variations to these searches, however, these in

particular yielded the most relevant results. Other strategies used were AND, and quotation

marks in the search bar. This was very effective and helped to eliminate many of the results that

weren’t relevant to the research.

A problem that was faced using this database was the vast amount of articles, books,

news, journals, etc. to choose from. For that reason, the search was narrowed to only allow

journal articles, books, trade publications, and book chapters. After this was done the results

were much more relevant and useful. There was also the need for the results to be scholarly and

proven, which is why certain mediums were left out.

The search engine Google was also used to a small extent. Google was helpful in finding

more specific information needed to complete the research. Many of these searches were “how

to” searches. These searches included: “How to recruit students to a major”, and “How to recruit

students to Hospitality and Tourism management”. This proved to be very effective at generating

specific and relevant results that could not be achieved on GVSU’s database. Another tactic used


on Google was Boolean operations. The AND, quotations, and asterisks were used to generate

more relevant results. However, this method did not prove to be any more effective at generating

relevant results.

As the research continued the search terms and parameters opened up a bit and through

trial and error new searches were found and exploited. Through digging was how most of the

research in the rest of the paper from here on out was found.

Audience Analysis

As Mike Sciarini explained in a personal discussion, most of the current HTM students

are upperclassmen who switched from undecided into HTM (M. Sciarini, personal

communication, January 27, 2016). This being the case suggests that there may be a factor that

influences upperclassmen students, a factor that may not be something a lowerclassman has

experienced. In a 2012 journal article by Scott Richardson and Nicholas J. Thomas, it was stated

“Most respondents (80.2%) claimed to have some experience working in the industry. Of

those with work experience, almost half the respondents (44.3%) claimed to work, or

have worked, in food and beverage in hotels, restaurants or bars. The next question is

possibly the most interesting from this section of the report. This question asked

respondents who had work experience in the industry, how this experience had

influenced their perception of working in the industry after graduation. In a good sign for

the hospitality and tourism industry in the US, the overwhelming majority (78.1%)

claimed working in the industry had positively influenced their perception of careers in

the industry, while only a small number (7.3%) stated that it had negatively impacted

their perception.” (“Utilising generation Y,” 2012)


Many students make their way through college by working at a restaurant, bar, or one of many

related service industries. Some of the 78.1% who said the experience positively influenced their

perception of the industry may be the same students who switch into the major at a later date in

their college career. If direct work experience is a factor, it may be beneficial for the campaign to

highlight this. Research from Priscilla Bloomquist, Christine J. Clements, and Bharath M Josiam

suggest that it is important to recruit from within the industry (“Hospitality and Tourism Student

Recruitment,” 2013). With the many students working in campus dining on campus as well as

students working in the industry off campus, there are many opportunities to attract perspective

students who may already have an interest in HTM.

In a study by Eddy S. W., Linda Schweitzer, and Sean T. Lyons, of the many factors that

influence what a millennial is looking for in a career some of the most important things were

high pay, opportunity for advancement, sense of belonging, emotional return, and work/life

balance. It is vital that HTM provides these things and that it is shown to perspective students

that it does.

Target Audience

Being that many of the current students are upperclassmen, there needs to be an influx of

freshmen and sophomores to fill the gap once they leave. It is also important to maintain the

current students as stated by Mike Sciarini. Mike Sciarini also stated that most of the students in

the HTM program are students who chose the major after attending GVSU for a year or more

(M. Sciarini, personal communication, January 27, 2016). All three of these things should be

addressed and improved using the PR campaign.

Students in high school as well as freshmen at GVSU are the target audience for the

campaign. These individuals also happen to be millennials which has its own implications. They


are the students coming into college as well as the students currently enrolled at the college.

Millennials are avid users of technology such as phones and computers and it is where they find

a vast majority of their information. To target this market it is important to take that into

consideration, also according to Padraig O'Connor millennials are not fond of traditional

advertising (P. O’Connor, July 28, 2016). When attempting to reach this market, it is wise to do

so in a way other that putting up posters. It would be much more beneficial to target this market

via social media. The US Chamber of Commerce has published some interesting information

about internet usage for millennials, these statistics include:

75% have created a profile on a social networking site

Millennial’s get 59% of their news via the Internet

80% sleep with their phones next to their bed (“The Millennial Generation Research

Review,” n.d.)

With these few statistics in mind, it is clear that this target audience, which happens to be

millennials, gets a majority of their information online. The internet is very important to their

lives and it is where they spend a lot of their time.

Connecting with students who are in the major as well as out of it would be done best by

utilizing internet media. As recently stated, millennials are heavy users of the internet media and

this medium may be the best to reach them. In addition, college applicants are increasingly

becoming stealth applicants. These stealth applicants have no prior contact with the university

they are applying to. According to Christopher Griffin (2012) in a magazine article

“Approximately one-third of the applications filed at public and private universities are

from stealth applicants. This is a major shift from years past, when students would be in


contact with colleges by phone, campus visit, college fair or high school visit”. (“College

admissions becomes unpredictable,” p. 72)

These students who are stealth applicants aren’t meeting with academic advisors or being

subjected to career fairs which means they are doing their own research on majors. If one-third

of applicants are looking online to find their major, it is important that the HTM department is

available and appealing to these students on that medium. In addition, millennials have been

subjected to advertising and the internet their whole life, for that reason it is important to be

straight forward when using internet media. As stated before, there are certain things that

students are looking for in a career, as stated by Scott Richardson and Nicholas J. Thomas

“Tourism and hospitality educators can also help to change the perceptions of hospitality

and tourism students by providing them with a realistic view of the types of careers

available in the industry.” (“Utilising generation Y,” 2012)

While targeting this audience via internet media it is important to be honest about what types of

careers are possible and what they may be doing in the future. This audience is very proficient

with the internet and they know when something is being embellished. Honest internet media is

the best option to reach this audience.

The next chapter will continue with this research to determine the mindset, motives, and

practices of current Grand Valley State University Students. The research in the next chapter is

primary research conducted via survey and focus group. In addition, the methods, results, and

discussion of the results will be included.


PRIMARY RESEARCH


Primary Research

The primary research was conducted in two ways, the first method was a survey and the

second method was a focus group. The survey consisted of 10 HTM oriented questions on

Survey Monkey sent out to friends attending Grand Valley State University (GVSU). The survey

ended with 79 respondents completing all ten questions. The focus group was conducted at the

Phi Mu sorority house just off campus of Grand Valley. There were 6 GVSU students

participating in the focus group including freshmen, sophomores, a junior, and a senior. They

were asked a variety of questions related to the HTM program at GVSU and how and why they

chose their current major. The information received from this primary research proved to be

significant for the process of developing strategies and tactics for the recruitment of new students

to the HTM program. We learned that there are certain ways of reaching students that are much

more effective than others. We also learned that there are certain things that some students may

find very enticing, such as salary and faculty, and some students that don’t think these are

important factors at all when considering their major. For this reason there needs to be a variety

of tactics used that will attract the whole range of student preferences.

Results

Results for the survey proved to be somewhat surprising. To start, 21% of the

respondents did not even know that GVSU offered an HTM program and 81% were not at all

knowledgeable or only slightly knowledgeable about the HTM program. Almost 4% of students

who took the survey did not even hear about the HTM program prior to taking the survey. For

those students that have heard of the program, 54% had heard about it during their Freshman

year at GVSU. 68% of respondents follow GVSU social media accounts, most being twitter and

Facebook with roughly 25% saying they follow GVSU Instagram accounts. Another surprising


result was that 34% of respondents were at some point interested in becoming an HTM major,

however, only 2% of the respondents are actually HTM majors.

As is apparent from this table, a majority of the 79 respondents know very little about the HTM

program, with only 2 being very knowledgeable and 2 having HTM as their current major. In

addition, many respondents found information about their major online, however, there were

many who got their information offline as well. This is shown in the table below (respondents

were allowed to choose more than one).


One thing that the HTM program is proud of is the high involvement of the alumni and faculty,

however, 68% of respondents said alumni and/or faculty have no influence on their choice of

major. There was also a large spread of when students choose their major which is shown in the

table below. Many students knew what they wanted to do early on in their college career, and

many knew even before coming to GVSU.


The focus group was asked similar questions followed by questions to expand on what

they had answered and why. Most of the responses proved to be the same as what was found

from the survey, the ones that were not similar will be included below.

To start, most of the 6 respondents thought that the required 400 hours of internships is

excessive and that would greatly deter them from pursuing the HTM major. Four of the

respondents said that they would prefer classes to be in Allendale, however, if they lived

downtown it would not be much of a problem and 2 said that it does not matter. When asked if

they would follow a major on social media, the answer was yes from all respondents with a

majority preferring the social media site to be Twitter. The participants all believed that amount

of money, job security, and growth opportunity in any given field are all important factors for


what major they chose. The rest of the focus group results were very similar to the survey and

not much information was gleaned from them.

Analysis and Discussion

When analyzing the results, it became apparent that there was a great lack of knowledge

about the HTM program, some students had never even heard of it. This may be because it is not

one of the most popular majors. Other majors like Math, Engineering, and Science are much

more known and popular in the minds of college students. In general, the HTM program may be

getting overshadowed by the more well-known majors. This is important when considering what

strategies and tactics should be used to recruit students. There definitely needs to be education

oriented tactics used so students are aware of and have knowledge about the HTM program. In

addition, most students get at least some of their information about majors online. There are

some that get information from people at GVSU; however, this number is not as significant as

the other. This may be due to the fact that students today grew up using the internet and are

accustomed to getting their information online. From this information, we can conclude that

there needs to be a large amount of emphasis put on online tactics and a secondary amount put

on things like advisors and possibly alumni. Most students decide their major before coming to

college or Freshmen year at college. This may be because they know what they want to do from

a young age or possibly because they feel pressured to pick a major as soon as possible. Due to

this, it is important to target students when they are freshmen or even before they come to

GVSU. This is definitely something to keep in mind when determining strategies and tactics.

In the following chapter will be an overview of the objectives as well as the strategies and

tactics that will be used to achieve the main objective of the campaign.


OBJECTIVES STRATEGIESAND TACTICS


Objectives

Our first object with the information from the primary and secondary research combined

would be to raise awareness of the HTM major. We would target incoming freshmen and current

student freshmen and sophomores at GVSU, as well as any undecided students. Our goal would

be to recruit 250 new students to the major within the next year, steadily increasing over time.

The first strategy would be to grab the attention of young students via social media. Most

of the students enrolling in the program are not freshmen and most are undecided. The tactic

would be to have a social media account tagging HTM happenings, students, and anything else

HTM related, and to encourage enrolled students to do this and to use an HTM hashtag as well.

According to our survey very few people have heard about the HTM major prior to coming to

GVSU. This public of incoming freshmen and undecided students is comprised of millennials

and this age group is very active on social media. For this reason it would be effictive to target

these individuals via social media. This is also backed up by our primary research which states

that 61% of our respondents found info of their major on GVSU’s website and 33% found info

about their major via google searches. The communication channel would be digital and the

medium would be social media. We would do this tactic from May to September, at the time

when students are thinking about their major.

The second strategy would be to educate students and future students about the HTM

major via the internet. The tactic would be to create an interactive website for the HTM program

where students can be immersed into the HTM program virtually, see what it’s like, what they

would be doing, and the opportunities that they would have. The target market again is

millennials. Millennials are heavy users of the internet and social media which was reflected in

our research. According to our secondary research, many students currently enrolling in


universities are “stealth applicants”. They don’t have any communication with the university

prior to enrolling and gain most of their information of the school and its majors online. A

website that would entertain and grab the attention and interest of these individuals could provide

a major benefit for the HTM program. Also, the fact that most students learn about their major

online, as we learned from the primary research, means that this medium would be ideal to reach

the target audience. The communication channel would be mass and the medium would be

digital. We would put up the site in May and keep it up indefinitely while continuously updating

it.

The third strategy would be to educate students about what it is like to be in the field of

HTM. The tactic would be to have alumni from the HTM program post periodic blogs explaining

what they are doing or any other topic related to the field that they think HTM students should

know. This would be targeted toward high school students, incoming freshmen and undecided

students. The target market is very active on the internet and it is where they get a lot of their

information. According to our primary research 26% of students at GVSU know nothing about

the program and 54% are only slightly knowledgeable. If there is a blog that could educate

students about the HTM program, it would be very beneficial to current as well as prospective

HTM students. The communication channel would be mass and the medium would be digital for

this tactic.

The second objective is to build a positive image of the HTM program in the minds of

students. We would target incoming freshmen and current student freshmen and sophomores at

GVSU, as well as any undecided students. The goal would be to get people excited about the

HTM major and have positive thoughts about it that they might share with friends.


The first strategy would be to get students excited about the HTM program and get

people talking about it. The tactic used to do this would be to host an event on campus where

students can come play games, win free stuff, and learn about the HTM program. Students can

sign up to receive emails from the HTM college and, if they do, will be entered in a raffle to win

free prizes. College students love free stuff like clothes, cozies, and other stuff like that so there

would be an immediate draw from something like this. According to the primary research, 50%

of students find information about their major from friends. This event would be perfect for that

reason because a lot of students would be passing the word about the event and may even bring

their friends with them so they don’t have to go alone. The event would be held in Allendale to

attract younger students such as freshmen and sophomores who are the primary students to be

considering what major they want. The communication channel would be face to face as would

the medium, however, the email will be digital.

The next strategy would be to spread this positive image online. The tactic would be to

post on social media all of the good stuff HTM people are doing in the community. This would

be videos, pictures, and short explanations on Twitter and Facebook of students in the HTM

program saying all of the great things they are doing. This would also help students that are

interested in HTM to see what they would be doing with the major in the real world. As we

know, the target audience is comprised of young people who are heavy users of social media so

this would be a really good way to reach them. They also have stated that they would be

interested, or already are, in following GVSU social media pages. The communication channel

would be mass and the medium would be digital.

The third strategy would be to provide a positive service for students who have shown

interest in HTM. The tactic to do this would be to offer job opportunities in the Allendale and


Grand Rapids area to students that have shown interest in HTM. The job opportunities would be

HTM oriented such as restaurants and hotel positions. These would be sent out via email to all of

the students that have provided their email to the HTM major. With this strategy, students would

gain a positive image of the HTM program because they would be getting assistance to find a

job. Also the service would actually help some students in need of a job. College students are

spending a lot of money to attend Grand Valley and any extra income could help them greatly.

This would also help to educate students about the HTM program since 80% of them are not

knowledgeable on the HTM field. In addition, 17% of students find information about their

major from businesses in the field. This service would help those students and possibly even

increase that percentage. The communication channel would be mass and the medium would be

email.

The third objective is to recruit new students to the HTM program. We would target

incoming freshmen and current student freshmen and sophomores at GVSU, as well as any

undecided students. The goal is to recruit at least 50 students per semester by using these tactics.

The first strategy would be to grab the interest and attention of new freshmen students at

GVSU. The tactic used to do this would be to have a table at Campus Life Night where students

can be enticed to enroll in the HTM program. Students would learn about HTM, be given a flyer

or brochure outlining the program, and be given the option to provide their email to receive

periodic emails about the HTM program. From the primary research, it was shown that 32% of

students chose their major during their freshman year. For this reason, it would be ideal to get

them interested as soon as possible at an event that thousands of freshman attend, such as

Campus Life Night. The communication channel would be mass and the medium would be face

to face.


The second strategy is to grab the attention and interest of freshmen and students who

have not started classes at GVSU yet. The tactic would be to have a direct marketing email sent

to freshmen and students who are committed to coming to GVSU but have not come here yet.

The email would teach them about the HTM program and entice them to enroll in the major.

Since so many students decide their major prior to coming to GVSU, an email like this would be

perfect to put HTM in the minds of potential students before they come to GVSU and declare

their major. Also 54% of current students did not hear about the HTM program until their

freshman year, an email that introduces them to the program before they come to GVSU would

possibly be very beneficial. The communication channel would be personal and the medium

would be digital email.

The third and final strategy is to make HTM events known to students on campus. The

tactic used to do this would be to write the events in side walk chalk across campus for all

students to see and a press release. They would tell students that it is an HTM event, where and

when it is, and what will be going on. This is the closest thing to advertising that the HTM

program could do on campus besides putting up papers on bulletin boards. Many students do not

know about the HTM program and bringing them to these would educate them and provide the

opportunity to recruit them to the major. The communication channel would be mass and the

medium would be sidewalk advertisements and digital.

The following chapter will consist of the budget, timeline, and evaluation of the

campaign. They budget and timeline information is in the form of tables and the evaluation is in

the form of a narrative.


BUDGETTIMELINE

AND EVALUATION


Campaign Budget

Objective 1

Objective 2Tactic 1:Social media tags about the HTM program by students and faculty.

$0.00

Tactic 2:Interactive website.

$12.92 per monthfor a Wix site

$12.00 per hour of employee site maintenance

Tactic 3:Alumni blogs about their HTM career. $0.00

Tactic 1:Host a campus event where students can learn about the HTM program and provide their email to win prizes.

Shirts: $15.00 for 30 custom shirts

Koozies: $81.64 for 12 custom kooziesHats: $95.00 for 12

custom hatsPlastic Sports

bottle: $117.00 for custom plastic

bottle

Tactic 2:Social media posts of HTM oriented videos and pictures posted by students and faculty.

$12.92 per monthfor a Wix site

$12.00 per hour of employee site maintenance

Tactic 3:Search for and offer jobs in the HTM field to students in the HTM program, students who have shown interest, and students who have provided their email.

$12.00 per hour spent by faculty$8.20 per hour

spent by student workers


Objective 3

Tactic 1:Have a table at Campus life night to educate about, raise awareness for, and recruit for the HTM program.

$12.00 per hour spent by faculty

Tactic 2:Direct Marketing emails about the HTM program sent to current and future students.

$12.00 per hour spent by faculty$8.20 per hour

spent by student employees

Tactic 3:Use side walk chalk to promote HTM events. $3.00 for chalk

Campaign Evaluation

All objectives, strategies, and tactics will be evaluated at the end of the year to see if they

were affective. In addition, strategy and tactic number one for the second and third objective will

be evaluated immediately after the event is held. Most of the tactics will run for an indefinite

amount of time and may be discontinued at the end of the year if the evaluation proves them to

be ineffective.

Objective one is to raise awareness of the HTM program. This should be measured using

a survey and focus group of students at Grand Valley State University. The survey and focus

group should be conducted in the same way, with the same questions as was done previously.

This will ensure that there is no deviance in results due to differences in method and questions.

The responses should be measured alongside the results from the previous year to evaluate if


there was an improvement and if the goal was met. The campaign will be successful and reach its

goal if there was a significant improvement of 50% more students aware of the HTM program.

Objective two is to build a positive image of the HTM program. This should also be

measured using a survey and/or focus group, however, a survey would be ideal due to its ability

to sample a larger audience. Due to the fact that there is no prior information stating the current

attitude of students toward the HTM program, there will be nothing to compare the results to.

Instead, to evaluate whether the campaign was successful, compare the results to the following

goal. The goal is for the survey and/or focus group results to show a positive attitude toward the

HTM program. Due to the fact that there is no measure for attitude, it will be up to the

conductors and evaluators to interpret the results.

Objective three is to recruit new students to enroll in the HTM program. This should be

measured by comparing the number of new students who enrolled in HTM in fall of 2015 to the

number of students who enrolled in fall of 2017. This is ideal because fall 2015 is prior to the

campaign and fall 2017 is after the campaign has finished. The campaign will have been

successful if the new enrollment has reached the goal of 250 new students or is significantly

higher than the previous year. However, it may be difficult to contribute the increased enrollment

to objective three only. Objective one and two will most likely play a significant part in the

increased enrollment.

If the goals of the campaign have not been met or if the campaign was not successful,

there are some things that can be done. First, evaluate which goals were not met. If there is only

one or two goas that were not met than it is possible to evaluate which tactics were not successful

and implement new tactics in their place. If the entire campaign was not successful and the HTM

story was not told and the enrollment did not increase there are changes that need to be made.


Start by evaluating which, if any, tactics were successful. If they were then keep implementing

them. If certain tactics were unpopular, had a low turnout, or were not utilized then replace them

with other tactics to be implemented. If nothing was successful or affective, than the best option

would be to completely start over with a new campaign and evaluate whether or not that one is

successful.


Campaign Timeline


APPENDIX

References


Bloomquist P., Clements C. J., Josiam B. M. (2013). Hospitality and Tourism Student

Recruitment: Strategies Based on the Decisionmaking Process. Journal of Hospitality &

Tourism Education, 10(1),18-22. doi: 10.1080/10963758.1998.10685168

Griffin, C. (2012, June). College admissions becomes unpredictable: "stealth" applicants and

college marketers are complicating the process. Retrieved from:

http://go.galegroup.com.ezproxy.gvsu.edu/ps/i.do?p=GRGM&u=lom_gvalleysu

id=GALE|A294073198&v=2.1&it=r&sid=summon&userGroup=lom_gvalleysu&authC

unt=1

Ng, E. S. W., Schweitzer, L., & Lyons, S. T. (2010). New generation, great expectations: A field

study of the millennial generation. Journal of Business and Psychology,25(2),

281-292. doi:10.1007/s10869-010-9159-4

P O'Connor. (2015, July 28). What To Know When Marketing To Millennials [Web log].

Retrieved from http://socialmediaweek.org/blog/2015/07/marketing-to-millennials/

Richardson, S., & Thomas, N. J. (2012). Utilising generation Y: United states hospitality and

tourism students' perceptions of careers in the industry. Journal of Hospitality and

Tourism Management, 19, 7890. doi:10.1017/jht.2012.12

The Millennial Generation Research Review. Retrieved from:

https://www.uschamberfoundation.org/reports/millennial-generation-research-review

Survey

http://go.galegroup.com.ezproxy.gvsu.edu/ps/i.do?p=GRGM&u=lom_gvalleysu


Questions:

1. Were you at any point interested in the HTM major?

2. Do you like or dislike majors that require an internship?

3. Do you follow GVSU on any social media?

4. Do you prefer your classes to be in Allendale or Downtown?

5. How did/do you find information on your major? (Choose all that apply)

6. Did you know that GVSU offers a Hospitality and Tourism Management (HTM) major

and minor?

7. How much do you know about the HTM program?

8. Did alumni and/or faculty have any influence on your choice of major?

9. When did you decide to pursue your current major?

10. When did you first hear about the HTM major?







Moderator Guide

Introduction Hello, my name is Andrew Najm. This research is for a PR campaign for the Hospitality and Tourism Management major at Grand Valley State University. It is being conducted for a CAP 220 class. Your answers to the questions will be recorded and possibly included as part of the primary research portion on the PR campaign book. Thank you for taking the time to participate in the research process.Rules· This focus group will last about 30 minutes· There are no wrong answers, any opinion helps· Everyone needs to talk, however, you don’t have to answer every question· No phones during the focus group· Please be respectful to others in the group· If you are uncomfortable with any of the questions then feel free to not answer· Discussion with other participants is encouraged· Does anyone have any questions?Questions1. What are your impressions of the HTM major?2. What have you heard about the HTM Major?3. If you had to choose where your classes were located would you prefer them to be downtown at the Pew Campus or in Allendale? 4. When did you decide your major?5. Why did you choose your major?6. Give an example when a faculty member or an alum influenced your choice in picking your major 7. Were you at any point interested in the HTM major? Why?8. Do you know anyone in the HTM major?9. If yes, do you know why did they choose HTM?10. Where did you go to learn more about your major?11. Do you want to study abroad at some point during your college career?12. Do you read the Lanthorn?13. Which of the university's social media accounts do you follow?14. Did you hear about HTM before you came to Grand Valley?Close Thank you for your participation, I appreciate the answers and insight.


Focus Group Notes

1.They know what HTM stands for, one respondent knows you take food classes and study abroad offered, you can work on cruise ship or hotel. 2. Yeah downtown does affect decision. If they lived in Allendale they wouldn't want to go downtown. Others said it doesn’t matter.3. One was undecided until orientation day, one respondent came wanting to do marketing and switched second semester sophomore year to PR. Another knew in HS and is a finance major. Others knew before attending GV.4. None interested in events held by faculty5. Combination of online, google search, all the above, course catalogue to find major information6. One follows the GVSU twitter7. All would follow major twitter accounts 8. Like internships. Amount required for HTM majors is not realistic. There is not one for finance (is surprised about that) 9. Marketing coursework was very hard, repetitive and dry 10. Money and job security effect decision and growth opportunity 11. One had attended a lecture for major, thought about it but hasn't done it. Another respondent never has (If extra credit was involved they all would go)12. Never used webpage- only for advising appointments 13. Heard of the name of the major but never considered it, or knew a lot about it, never knew what it stood for


Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact:Andrew NajmCAP [email protected]

Hospitality and Tourism Management major hosting an alumni and faculty meet and inform

WHAT: The HTM program at Grand Valley State University will be hosting an open event for students to meet and learn from individuals currently teaching and working in the HTM field. The event will be an educational service provided for students interested in pursuing a career in Hospitality and Tourism Management. Students will have an opportunity to ask any questions they have regarding the HTM major and minor, as well as exchange information with faculty and alumni in attendance.

President Thomas Haas will be in attendance to meet and speak with students and faculty.

WHERE: Allendale, Michigan – The event will be held in the Kirkhof center on Grand Valley State University’s Allendale campus.

WHEN: September 20th, 2016 form 3:00 pm-6:00 pm.

WHO: There will be 20 professors, 5 advisors, and 30 alumni from the HTM program. Also, president T. Haas will be in attendance.

About Hospitality and Tourism ManagementHospitality and Tourism Management is one of many majors and minors offered at GrandValley State University. With an enrollment of roughly 500 students, it is one of the smallestmajors currently offered at Grand Valley State University.

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Andrew Najm

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CAP220 PR Campaign Plan Book

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