KMXT 100.1 FM Public Radio in Kodiak, Alaska
Kayla Desroches/KMXT
The Czech car company, Skoda, will be touring automotive journalists around Kodiak Island over the next few weeks. Writers from the Czech Republic, Russia, the United Kingdom, and France are here to learn about the place that some of Skoda’s vehicles are named after.
Skoda has filmed promotional videos on the island several times over the last few years to promote its SUVs, the Kodiaq spelled with a Q, and the Karoq, which is a play on Alutiiq and Inuit words that mean car and arrow.
Guillaume Jolit is in charge of Skoda’s public relations in France. He says the car company invited French journalists that focus on vehicles to Kodiak to encourage more press about the cars on the island, which are both Kodiaqs, but one is four-wheel drive and the other two-wheel drive.
“We wanted to show them where the name Kodiaq comes from, so it’s also really important so show the city, the island, to show how you live here, and what you imagine when you think about the Kodiaq.”
There were two reporters in Kodiak this weekend. Jolit explains they traveled under the sponsorship of their individual organizations.
French journalist Christophe Bourgeois says he’s a freelancer, but is working for a French automotive newspaper on this trip called Auto Journal 4×4.
“This island is very different from island[s] in Europe, particularly in France. Everything is quiet, peaceful, and the countryside, the landscape is very huge. This wildlife… it’s very [impressive to] us.”
The journalists visited places like the Baranov Museum and Alaska Aerospace Corporation’s spaceport complex in Pasagshak, among others.
The cars are sold in Europe, but are not currently on the market in the United States.
