YATEC Diary – 6th session
Fantales, Sherbies and Minties added a sweet twist to the Young Australian Tourism Export Council’s National Development Program last week, with participants given a lesson on negotiation and networking.
Following presentations from Goway Travel product and business development manager Graziella Caruso and Hayman international sales manager Owen Jones on the finer details on negotiation and networking skills, participants were set two tasks to put what they had learnt into practice.
The first was to develop a short biography which they would use to introduce themselves to someone they hadn’t met before. For example, mine was, ”Hello, my name is Alice Terlikowski and I’m a journalist from Thumbrella, a trade news website for the travel and hospitality industries.”
Participants then introduced themselves to one another paying particular attention to remembering their new contacts’ names, which was an area where a lot of people have difficulty with when it comes to networking. Jones suggested repeating the new person’s name when introduced, to assist in locking the name into the memory bank. Also associating the name with a facial feature or accent can also help.
The second task at hand was where participants were divided into groups and given a bowl of mixed lollies which each had different dollar values. For example a Mintie was worth $10 but a Fantale was worth $300. The groups then had to negotiate an exchange of lollies with a goal of being the group with the most valuable collection. Different strategies were involved, with some groups chosing to merge to increase their chances.
A favourite quote to come out of the evening was presented by Caruso who quoted John F Kennedy, “Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.”
Thumbrella reporter Alice Terlikowski is participating in the Young Australian Tourism Export Council’s National Development Program and will be blogging on a weekly basis following each session to give Thumbrella readers an insight into the eight-week program.
By Alice Terlikowski · November 17th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
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