The story about My First workshop experience.

Program of Workshop on “Digital Marketing”

Wednesday, 10.10.2018

Venue: Bangladesh International Conference Center (BICC)

Hello! In today’s blog post I present my experiences with the Last workshop that I have the pleasure to conduct.

Workshop for Bangladesh Tourism Board.

Chief Guest: Mr. A.K.M Shahjahan Kamal (MP) Judge panel: Mr. Mustafizur Rahman, Mr. Jahangir Hossain .

Last week I attended my first workshop which was organized by the National Tourism Organization with my colleague Romana and my supervisor Mahdi Ahbab. Firstly they were welcomed by the participants, Special Guest, and Chief guest by presenting some video clips.

When we reached, I  realized that everyone was much senior and experienced, I was the youngest one over there. At first, they give us a file with a pen, dairy, and some papers about the workshop, and the schedule of that day. Then the chief guest arrived, and give their valuable speech to everyone. After that, we had a short break for like 15-20 minutes for breakfast. Then we click some good pictures. After finish my tea we went for the next room, where we saw the seats are rearranged for the group discussion.

Officer of Bangladesh Tourism Board Mr. A.K.M. Rofikul Islam Presented Guest and total participants divided by 4 groups. That was Branding group, Development Group, Marketing Group, and Idea generating group. we check our names and seat with the group A (Branding Group).

Our group topic was Branding Bangladesh. One of group member name was Mr. Md Jahangir Hossain who was sitting with the Chief guest’s of that workshop, he told us “Branding is a very huge topic, we can’t suggest all the ideas and cover the whole topic within next two hours. so it’s better to discuss the Camping thing for tourist. After choosing our main topic then we focused on the group discussion, everyone shares their suggestions and write it down the points for presentation.

Some points from the presentation:

There is a trend that going on Bangladesh is “Stories Of Land”&“Beautiful Bangladesh”. They have already developed these sites in many ways. Many companies are working with government sites for tourism development. One of them a company name is A2I, they are working on it. They already publish a contact number 555 & 333. They need to advertise these more in the tourism sector so that everyone can know about it. What they do is tourist can call them for any kind of help. It’s basically a call center where they can give help. They also publish a logo book where 64 district logo is given. They are going to publish a book for Bangladeshi visit places.

Goals Of The Campaign:

• Branding Bangladesh in digital and social media as a new travel destination in the world,
• Create a distinctive image of Bangladesh through effective marketing and promotional campaign in online media,
• Increase visitors arrival to Bangladesh from the main source countries,
• Create local awareness about conservation and preservation of tourist sites and resources.

I was a little scared at first but after that, I make myself comfortable, they ask me about my suggestions. I don’t feel awkward at all. I gave my ideas very freely. They even appreciate my ideas and note it down. Then we talk about the issues. How we can improve the Tourism Board in Bangladesh. We find out some major problems even we give some good solutions also.

My Suggestions:

Build a mobile App:

• Transportation
• Hotel booking
• Trip Planning
• Event app
• Weather information
• Divided by categories like sea, heritages etc.
• Culture short Videos
• Costing Idea
• All possible way Route Location with Timing
• Virtual reality tour short videos
• Travel Blog links
• All district travel website link together
• Multi lingo app
• 360-Degree Photography

We’ve had some time to sit and analyze the delivery and findings and we are extremely proud of the feedback we have received. We have spent a significant amount of time polishing the presentation to make sure that others received the maximum in terms of the idea about tourism development.

My favorite part has to be the open discussions. As each session brought new topics to the forefront, we were able to squash assumptions and myths and the information shared complimented the curriculum perfectly.

After finish the group discussion we went for lunch. After finish that we came out in the next room and start our presentation. One group member has collected all the points. After lots of discussions, one member of our group represents our group suggestions and ideas. After finish, many people asked many questions about our suggestions. we answer them very smartly. Then everyone appreciates our thoughts and effort and also clap for our group presentation. Then we sit and listen to all the other group’s presentation. At last, they give us token money as a gift and it ends at 4.00 then we left.

Our workshops run for roughly 7 hours. The workshops give the pupils an opportunity to talk openly about their ideas. I have learned many things from there. I almost forgot about to show the pictures :