This LTTA was organized in order to continue the challenge proposed by Proandi “Restaurant D’Gostar Póvoa de Varzim” during 22nd till 26th of November 2021. Proandi proposed to carry out a challenge whose objective will be to develop a Communication Plan for the D’Gostar restaurant in Póvoa de Varzim. In this communication plan, the main objective is also to develop a website and make it more dynamic, make a promotional video of the restaurant and define the Communication Plan as a final document.
It should be noted that initially, the challenge was to prepare a Business Plan for the Casa Paivense restaurant; an older family establishment that needed a makeover from layout to the creation of social networks. However, on October 6, 2021, management informed that the establishment was going to close for personal reasons. Thus, Proandi had to find a solution. After contacts, there was the interest of the restaurant D’Gostar in participating. Since this restaurant is part of a chain of restaurants and a very recognized business group in northern Portugal. So, it made sense not to carry out an entire business plan but to focus only on what was needed: developing a new website and boosting social media.
Since October 6th, Proandi and partners have been working on this challenge and tasks were divided between all. Since there was a change in the partner restaurant in this challenge, during the LTTA, all partners and participants discussed the progress of the challenge and the tasks to be performed. Throughout the week, in addition to the work related to the challenge, there was also space to carry out cultural visits to understand what is being done by Proandi and also in the municipality.
Group Dynamics
On the first day of the LTTA, in order to present all the participants and partners present, Proandi held an icebreaker dynamic. It consisted in that each partner country, designated as “team…” chose a leader who, on a post-it in different colors, put the name of their country or something that characterizes it, as well as if they wanted to put the names of the elements of the group. The post-its were then placed on a map of Europe on top of each representative country. Each team leader then spoke about themselves and introduced the other members of the group, also talking about their country/city.
Visit to Proandi facilities and social lunch
During the week of LTTA, Proandi also includes in the program a visit to its facilities and the preparation of a lunch held by its trainees, in order to publicize and show the work carried out by them.
Official recepetion at City Council of Póvoa de Varzim
As a cultural visit during the LTTA, all partners were received by a representative of Póvoa de Varzim City Council. On this visit, the partners were able to get to know the municipality and some of the city’s curiosities related to traditions and culture.
Challenge development
Regarding the work carried out for the challenge, each partner started to make a short presentation using a power point on the tasks carried out, according to what had been agreed and shared before between all partners.
On the second day of work in the morning, the restaurant manager Paulo Gomes and his colleague from the Marketing department Hugo Pinto, were present at the meeting to hear the work carried out and suggestions for the communication plan from all partners. His presence was important, as he was able to help and clarify doubts from the partners and to direct the work in the right direction.
During the afternoon, all partners visited the D’Gostar restaurant facilities and continued the work session there. The partners were divided into working groups, and they worked according to the topics for the communication plan: the Portuguese team worked on new menus, creating an international menu with suggestions for typical dishes from other partner countries:
- Slovenian team worked on the website development together with the Italian team
- Bulgaria and Greece teams worked on the advertiser promotion and message of the restaurant
- Spanish partner worked together with the Portuguese team also in defining a new menu, especially in creating a menu for special days.
In this way, by carrying out the activities at D’Gostar, the partners could be more involved in what is carried out by the restaurant and have the help of the restaurant manager to develop the work tasks.
After the work carried out and completed by all partners, they made a final presentation of the main conclusions of the work they developed as a team and a summary was made of what still needs to be done until the challenge is completed.
Conclusion
Overall, and as this LTTA was the first to be organized, the feedback was positive and the proposed objectives were achieved: getting to know the D’Gostar restaurant facilities, working on the communication plan and on the main aspects, defining new goals and deadlines for the next tasks and create a comfortable environment for all partners to meet and socialize. Also noteworthy is the fact that at the beginning of the LTTA program, partners discussed some confusion in the organization of the plan and what it was supposed to achieve with this challenge. However, this is due to the fact that the partners did not have access to documents previously sent by Proandi and also placed on Google Drive in the challenge folder. It should also be noted that there was a change of restaurant partner in this challenge and the little time for articulation for all partners and the promoting entity to work towards the successful development of this project.
We think that after the intervention of the restaurant manager, the ideas and the work that is supposed to be carried out became clearer and the partners were able to guide the work in a more organized way. Also, the fact that we all worked in the restaurant’s facilities meant that more ideas could come up and the work flowed more smoothly.
It was decided between all partners that there would be a meeting a week later with responsible person for the restaurant for feedback and organization of the next tasks and materials needed to be sent by them.
Also, it was clear that:
- The Slovenian partner will continue to work on the project website, together with the partner from Spain and Italy;
- Portugal will work on the new “international menu” for the restaurant, together with the Spanish partner who will also develop a possible menu for the festive days in Portugal;
- Bulgaria and Greece continue to bet on the advertisement policy and on the message that the restaurant wants to convey to its target audience.
The personal and logistical management of this 1st LTTA was not an easy task, but as host entity and with the collaboration of all partners, it was easier to conclude the event successfully. On the last day, the participation certificates were handed out.
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