Way Out Wineries
Tourism Marketing Specialist Internship
HOWDY!
Welcome to my Way Out Wineries internship!
My name is Sara Stewart and I am a Texas A&M University class of 2022 (WHOOP!) Recreation, Park, and Tourism Sciences major from Pleasanton, Texas! During the summer of 2021 I was a Tourism Marketing Specialist Intern for Way Out Wineries.
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Way Out Wineries (WOW) is an organization made up of eight boutique wineries in Central Texas. These wineries promote the use of Texas grapes in their wines and are working to put Texas on the world map for high quality wine. WOW organizes three annual WOW Road Trips to bring tourism to each winery and promote tourism in their small town and surrounding community. As the Tourism Marketing Specialist, I worked with the WOW Marketing Director and learned a lot about working for this organization.
Achievements
My 3 main goals were to increase the engagements on the WOW social media platforms, edit the new website and to help publish it, and to increase the number of visitors at the annual road trips through my marketing tactics.
I was able to fully operate the Way Out Wineries Instagram and Facebook accounts, visit the wineries and take professional quality photos, and become experienced in website design via SquareSpace.
I ended my internship with a meeting with all of the winery owners, in which we discussed the implementation of creative solutions to rejuvenate the business. Having the ability to lead a portion of the meeting was great public speaking experience and a chance to practice professionalism.
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Experience after 300 hours:
Why you should consider this internship:
Organization
My favorite part of this internship was the people. I really enjoyed working with several family owned businesses that are focused on promoting Texas agritourism and slow tourism. Marketing for the Way Out Wineries compared to fast tourism companies helped me to understand the importance of marketing a unique visitor experience.
During my visits with the wineries I enjoyed meeting the winery staff and owners. Getting to know the area and small town community each winery is in helped me to understand how to best market for Way Out Wineries.
Because this internship is remote, it is up to the intern if they would like to visit the wineries. After assessing their marketing needs, I decided that I wanted to visit each winery and take photos to help create new content that best reflected Way Out Wineries.