Groovy Grape Tours

Placement organization

Name of organization: Groovy Grape Tours
Town/city: Adelaide
Country: Australië
Website: http://groovygrape.com.au

Student

Name of student: Ward Bartels

Specialist area: MT
Placement period: 2015-2016

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Tour operator / tour company
Organization’s activities: The company sells tours between Melbourne and Alice Springs. The company is located in Adelaide. The company is located between Alice Springs and Melbourne. Adelaide is the central place between Melbourne (city) and Alice Springs (town). They sell tours from Melbourne to Adelaide, Adelaide to Kangaroo Island and Adelaide to Alice Springs.
Target group of the organization: Backpackers and young minded travellers 18 – 60 years
Company culture: There is one director he is the boss of the company. Then you have the operational manager he is the boss of the marketing manager, account manager and after all he tells what the reservation team has to do. The operational manager also tells the mechanics what they have to do. The operational managers make sure that everybody is doing their job. It is a flexible company. They are not strict with rules. For them it is important that everybody likes their job.
Number of employees: 6
Dress code: casual
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? yes I had a conversation about this with my supervisor from Groovy Grape Tours

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working? I am working in all departments: marketing, reservations, accountant and operations. Most of the time I you doing reservations and operations (preparing the busses and prepare all the important stuff for the tours.
Brief description of your daily activities: • Reservations: Making bookings and answering enquiries through email and telephone. All the bookings are made through Respax booking system. This also includes opening and closing procedures with the running of the office from time to time.
• Operations: Preparing the vehicles and equipment for upcoming tours. The interns each have to work one day a week in the yard in peak season.
• Marketing: Helping the marketing manager, with daily tasks like preparing orientation and events and compiling tour statistics and data in Excel-documents. The interns have to write blogs about their experiences with the Groovy Grape Tours that they experience during the internship.
• Accounting: The interns, under instruction from the account manager, prepare paperwork for the tours, putting data in Excel-documents and file paperwork.

In general, the interns are working on a daily tasks list which has to be done every day. On this list, the activities are:
• Emailing and calling stakeholders about numbers, dietary requirements and upgrades for departing tours.
• Send bulk emails to customers who will join a tour or are coming back.
• Update tour availability for stakeholders, by entering availability in an Excel file.
• Organize and send brochures to stakeholders.
• Contact tour guides about the numbers, dietary requirements and upgrades for the tours departing the next day.
• Make trip packs with all the paperwork for the tours departing the next day.
Other activities the interns are involved in are:
• Entering agent sales in an Excel file.
• Entering surveys manually on Survey Monkey.
• Audit completed trip accounting forms by: check receipts, separate paperwork for the Account Manager and Operational Manager and store them on the right place.
• Maintenance of first aid kits.
• Organize and distribute agent bonuses for stakeholders who have booked package tours.
• Updating the itinerary on the website.
• Translating text for on the website or brochures.
During my internship I will be active on all the departments of the company. As you can read in the summary there is much variation in the daily tasks. My tasks will be to support: the reservations-, marketing-, operations- and accounting department.

This is more a general discription from the daily activities.
Brief description of your company assignment: For the company I have to make a strategic marketing plan. The company wants more direct bookings and for this assignment I have to advice the company about the best practices and about how they can create a good social media policy.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: The supervision is good. I learned a lot in the first month and after that I was able to do it myself. I kept learning new things. Each day you learn something new.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? Independent, teamplayer, sociable, flexible, stress-proof and friendly
Additional company requirements for this placement? Ms Office, writing skills, Seo, excell etc.
English: Advanced
Spanish:
French: Advanced
German:
Italian:
Other languages: It is usefull if you can speak some German because a lot of our customers are German or Swiss

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: Airplane from Amsterdam to Melbourne and from Melbourne a trip to Adelaide.

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? Internet via flatmates.com
How did you go to work every day? bicycle or it is also possible to use the public transport

Visa / work permit / vaccinations

Do you need a visa? Work and Holiday Visa
Do you need a work permit? No
How did you arrange the necessary documents: Via Internet the Australian embassy
How much time did it take to arrange the necessary documents? a few days
Did you need certain vaccinations? No
How long in advance?

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? No

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € 1250
Accommodation (monthly): € 500
Local transport (monthly): € 20
General costs of living (monthly): € 600-800
Costs of visa: € 300
Costs of work permit: €
What did the company pay for/to you? The company paid the tours that they sell and that is a lot of money. They paid me $600 per month.
Is almost 400 euro’s per month

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
You don’t have to prepare for the country’s culture because the people are really open minded.
The Australian people are polity and not that direct compared with the Dutch people. The Australian culture is quite the same as the Dutch culture but they are more relaxed.
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: bartelsward@gmail.com

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: Travel in the weekends as much as you can because Australia is really big and there are a lot of different natures.

Must see:
– Great Ocean Road
– Barossa Valley
– Beaches
– Kangaroo Island
– Flinders Outback
– Coober Pedy
– Uluru

Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: Activities:
– Watch an Australian Football game
– Go Karting
– Bowling
– Surfing
– Sky diving
– Snorkeling
– hiking
– camping etc.

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link