Goway Travel

Placement organization

Name of organization: Goway Travel
Town/city: Sydney
Country: Australië
Website: http://www.goway.com.au/

Student

Name of student: Leonie Lugtenberg

Specialist area: MT
Placement period: 2015-2016

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Tour operator
Organization’s activities: Goway Travel Sydney is specialized in Holidays to Australia, and NZ.
There are a lot of clients who are doing a self drive holiday.
They rent a car and we provide all the accommodations and tours for them.
Most of the time you are in contact with all the hotels to get the booking confirmed.
There is not a lot of contact with the clients but a lot of contact with the agents.
Target group of the organization: couples, families
Company culture: At Goway Travel there is a informal atmosphere. There is a nice work atmosphere and not really a hierarchy.
Number of employees: 28
Dress code: formal
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? yes

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working? FIT department, North America. This means that we got our bookings from our agents in Norht America. So the clients are American.
Brief description of your daily activities: The day starts with checking e-mails from the agents. This is the first thing you work on in the morning. These e-mails are always related to the bookings that you are working on. After about half an hour the new bookings are being divided. The first thing you have to do with the bookings is have a look in to the booking. The status needs to be changed and you have to put your initials in to the booking so everybody can see this is your booking.

When you changed the status of the booking, the booking needs to be send-off to the supplier. The supplier is one of the Hotels. When the status is on allotment we just need to wait for the confirmation because we have allotment. Most of the time we send our bookings of as an request booking. We have a policy that we need to inform the agent within 24 hours. So if we did not get an answer of the suppliers before 1 o’clock we start chasing the bookings. We call the hotel and ask if they have availability for us and if they can reconfirm the booking. It happens that they don’t have rooms available in the requested room type. We always ask if they have other room types available. This is the easiest way to accommodate the clients. If they are fully booked which happens quit often we need to look for an alternate accommodation. We always try to offer room types in the same category. If they have booked a 4* hotel in a certain area we try to find the clients another 4* hotel in the same area. When all the service lines are confirmed we need to send the agent an update on the end of the day. This can be that the booking is confirmed. Or that it is still pending because of an alternate hotel in the booking. We tell our agent everything what happened with the booking so they can process it for us.

Brief description of your company assignment: My internship assignment is about Indigenous tourism in Australia. And how to attract the European market for these kind of holidays. At the moment Goway travel has some problems with the number of indigenous holidays that are booked at the moment. And they would like to see an increase in these bookings. Here fore I will write my business assignment. This assignment will answer the main question; How can indigenous tourism in Australia get more popular with European travelers? To answer this main question I made 3 sub questions in this way I can give a clear answer to the main question.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: At Goway Travel you will have a very educational internship. They will give you your own responsibility over you own bookings, the staff is friendly and you get enough time for your internship assignment.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? independent and team player is both important.
Additional company requirements for this placement? –
English: Advanced
Spanish: Basic
French:
German:
Italian:
Other languages:

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: bus or train

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? myself / previous student
How did you go to work every day? public transport

Visa / work permit / vaccinations

Do you need a visa? yes, working holiday visa (really easy to get)
Do you need a work permit? no
How did you arrange the necessary documents: at work.
How much time did it take to arrange the necessary documents? not much. you only need a tax file nr. very easy to get in Syndey
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): € 1400. Goway Travel will pay this money back to you. (free ticket)
Accommodation (monthly): € 500,-
Local transport (monthly): € 70
General costs of living (monthly): € about 500
Costs of visa: € 450
Costs of work permit: € –
What did the company pay for/to you? 200 dollar per week/ 800 per month
With this money I could pay for my accommodation.

With the money from uitwonende beurs + Ov (+parents) etc i could live.

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
not really, it is not that different from our culture.
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: leonie_lugtenberg@hotmail.com

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: Go traveling before you start your internship
So worth it.
Look for a shared house once your here. Then you can actually see the room and with who you are going to live. Sydney is not to difficult to get a room. And the first week you will survive in a hotel/hostel.

Be prepared that you can’t wear a jeans at work. you can wear a normal black pant or any other color but no jeans.

Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: In Sydney there is always something to do.
It is a really big city so there are always things going on.
From Festivals to food markets and just chilling at the beach.
Good bars and Good . So always something to do.

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link