Iberia Sportscamps

Placement organization

Name of organization: Iberia Sportscamps
Town/city: Barcelona
Country: Spanje
Website: http://www.iberiasports.com

Name of student: Danielle Rouvroye

Specialist area: ITTI
Placement period: 2014-2015

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Touroperator
Organization’s activities: As a licensed travel agency and official agent of FC Barcelona, we offer our clients tailor made packages. In all our offers we can offer extra services:

1. Training Camps
We are experts for training camps with focus on Catalonia and the rest of Spain. Our packages are suitable for any team that wants to have the ultimate sport and training experience, both indoors and outdoors.
Services we offer include transfers, accommodation, training facilities, training material, external coaches, friendly matches including referee, excursions, guidance and tickets for games of FC Barcelona.

2. Tournaments and Sport Competitions
We can customised tournaments in Catalonia and all additional elements needed to attend existing tournaments and sport competitions, directed for teams who want to have an unforgettable time.
Services we offer include transfers, accommodation, sport facilities, inscription for the tournaments, excursions, guidance and tickets for games of FC Barcelona.

3. End of Season Trips
End of the season trips to Catalonia and the Balearic islands are perfect for a sport team which want to let loose and celebrate after a long and tough season.
Services we offer include transfers, accommodation, special nightlife, special city tours, special excursions, friendly or simply fun games, guidance and tickets for games of FC Barcelona.

4. School Trips
Our school trips to Catalonia are aimed towards school groups specialised in sports.
Services we offer include transfers, accommodation, sport facilities on walking distance, special sport city tours, guided sport activities, excursions, guidance and tickets for games of FC Barcelona.

Target group of the organization: Sport teams, schools
Company culture: Small startup company, only 1 person and 1 intern. In the future (coming months) another person will be hired, and most likely two interns. The manager is the ´boss´. The communication between us is informal, as we are all quite young.
Number of employees: 1 (but we share an office with another company of 10 people, who we lunch with)
Dress code: casual
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? yes

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working? I´m the righthand of the owner/manager of the company, so we do everything together. There aren´t really departments, as the company is (still) very small.
Brief description of your daily activities: Administration: Invoicing & maintenance of internal documents.
Marketing: Webpage & writing newsletter.
Acquisition/marketing: Via email, phone and direct meetings, doing research for potential clients, promote hockey tours on the German market by various ways.
Sales: Via email, phone and direct meetings; handling all incoming requests and making offers.
Organization of all tours booked through Iberia Sports.
Guidance: Guiding groups who booked a trip with Iberia Sports.

Brief description of your company assignment: The company is thinking about developing a new project/product for school sport tours. A similar product already exists for the English market, but not yet for other markets. I am assigned to do research for the Dutch and German market and develop this product for those specific markets. This assignment includes a research part as I would need to find out the structure of leisure and sports tours on private schools and how to attract them to come to Barcelona.

After doing research, I came to the conclusion that there is no market for this product in Germany nor Holland. Therefore, I will create three packages for an existing product. This product has not been developed yet, but has been offered, but has not been sold yet. For this product a lot of research has to be done, in order to offer three products that willl be interesting for the target group (which also has to be defined by me, after research).
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: My supervisor is my direct colleague and boss. Therefore, our communication is informal, but he is very friendly and helpful regarding my internship. He wants me to learn a lot and is very eager to teach me everything in and about the company as well as the industry. Mostly eveyr day we sit together and discuss what we/I will be doing that day, and after big projects we sit together to see what was good or not. The first few weeks he made sure everything was clear to me, and after a while he gave me more responsibilities etc.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? independent, teamplayer, very social, no 9-5 mentality, love for sports, social, communicative skills, stress proof, confidence, efficient
Additional company requirements for this placement? excel, outlook, wordpress, word, spanish, german, english, dutch
English: Advanced
Spanish: Advanced
French: Basic
German: Advanced
Italian: Basic
Other languages: Dutch: Fluent.

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: airplane

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? myself, but if needed the company will assist
How did you go to work every day? by foot

Visa / work permit / vaccinations

Do you need a visa? If european, no.
Do you need a work permit? Yes. Company will assist in this.
How did you arrange the necessary documents: Not applicable
How much time did it take to arrange the necessary documents? 2 days (work permit and social security)
Did you need certain vaccinations? No
How long in advance? NA

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? Yes (spanish/german)

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € 250
Accommodation (monthly): € 500
Local transport (monthly): € 20
General costs of living (monthly): € 700
Costs of visa: € NA
Costs of work permit: € 11
What did the company pay for/to you? Meals during working hours, financial compensation of 300€

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
I already lived in Spain for a year, so did not have to prepare for this.
As you will mostlikely live with only European people, you will not really see the real Spanish culture, as I found that Barcelona is a relatively modern city compared to Madrid, where you´ll see Spanish culture more. This is also because Barcelona is mainly Catalan and not Spanish.
Did the culture of the country influence your performance during the placement in any way? no

Future students on placement

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

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: Ask in which neighbourhoods you shouldn´t live. Make sure you have the required language skills. If you don´t have any affinity with sports, you will not like this internship.
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: The office is in the city center, right at the beach. Lots of things to do: restaurants, bars, beach, rent a scooter/bike/go cart, clubs etc.! Great lively city.

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link