Anywhere Costa Rica

Placement organization

Name of organization: Anywhere Costa Rica
Town/city: La Fortuna
Country: Costa Rica
Website: http://www.anywherecostarica.com

Student

Name of student: Michelle Baetsen

Specialist area: ITMC
Placement period: 2011-2012

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Tour agency
Organization’s activities: Communicating with customers and creating vacation plans for them and book the whole trip or booking just single services.
Target group of the organization: Travellers to Costa Rica. Mostly couples and families
Company culture: There is one general manager and all the other colleagues are equal. You as intern will be treated just like one of them.
Number of employees: 25
Dress code: casual
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Yes

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working? Operations department & Reservations department & Marketing department
Brief description of your daily activities: My daily activities at the operations department are;
Confirming reservations, check availability, look for alternative lodging possibilities if there is no space anymore.

My daily activities at the reservations department are;
checking the company’s mailbox, making vacation plans, answering emails of clients, calling providers to check for availability and chat online with customers, answering phone calls of clients.

Brief description of your company assignment: My company assignment was marketing related and I had to come up with several creations of Google Adwords for the company. I got an e-book which I had to read before hand and with the knowledge I gained I created Adwords. I was all the time communicating with the boss and he gave me feedback.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: The supervision within this organization is very well. You will have one colleague which will explain you everything and which will help you to getting to know the system and how everything works. She will be sitting the desk next to you so you can ask for her help whenever you need it.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? It is important to be able to work independent, teamplayer, sociable, flexible, stress-proof and accurate.
Additional company requirements for this placement? Word, Internet, HTML, Excel
English: Advanced
Spanish: Intermediate
French:
German:
Italian:
Other languages:

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: Airplane

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? The company provided accommodation for me
How did you go to work every day? By foot. From my apartment it was 15 minutes walking to work. The other intern had an apartment closer to the office and for her it was just 5 minutes walking. Fortuna is not big so where ever you will be staying, it will be close to the office.

Visa / work permit / vaccinations

Do you need a visa? Yes
Do you need a work permit? No
How did you arrange the necessary documents: You only need to fill in an ESTA form if you fly through the United States. You can buy this form through the internet 72 hours before you leave to Costa Rica.
How much time did it take to arrange the necessary documents? 72 hours
Did you need certain vaccinations? Yes
How long in advance? I am not sure how long in advance, I already had all the vaccinations before this trip.

Language course

Did you take a language course before you started your placement? No
Would you recommend to have a language course prior to this placement? –

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € 880,00
Accommodation (monthly): € 0,00
Local transport (monthly): € 0,00
General costs of living (monthly): € 320,00 without travelling around. The public bus is very cheap but when you only have 2,5 days off the shuttle bus which brings you directly to another destination is more convinient but this is very expensive.
Costs of visa: € 21,00 After 3 months you have to leave the country for 72 hours, you can choose to go to Panama or to Nicaragua for 3 days. I went to Panama. It cost me $27 including the costs of the transportation from La Fortuna to Panama and the costs of the Visa.
Costs of work permit: €
What did the company pay for/to you? Accommodation

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
I did not
Did the culture of the country influence your performance during the placement in any way? No, all the employees here are hard workers and the boss has everything well under control. They are very warm and personal which I really like and it makes your work very pleasant.

Future students on placement

Future students are free to contact me for further information: Yes
My e-mail address: baetsenmichelle@gmail.com

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: The people in the office are all very warm and friendly. You will feel comfortable very fast. Make sure you do your job well because if not the other colleagues have to check all the work you do and that will not create a nice atmosphere. If you have any questions you can ask everybody in the office. They are all very helpful and would love to help you. If you would like to change a working day in the schedule they are very flexible.
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: La Fortuna is a very small town. It has many tourist activities to offer and I highly recommend you to enjoy them. Just be aware that it is very touristy so the prices are quite high. All other destinations are approximately 3 till 6 hours away from La Fortuna. I was always off in the weekends so I had enough time to travel around. There are many nice places you can visit.

Many colleagues will take you for a drink and you can hang out with them after working hours if you want to.

I am really having a great time here and I highly recommend this placement to everybody. The work at the office is nice, the colleagues are so friendly and Costa Rica is a beautiful country.

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link