EF Educational Tours

Placement organization

Name of organization: EF Educational Tours
Town/city: London
Country: Groot-Brittannië
Website: http://www.eftours.com/

Name of student: Lotte Tardijn

Specialist area: MTT
Placement period: 2015-2016

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: tour operator
Organization’s activities: EF educational travel/tours provides international and domestic travel experiences, hands-on learning and lasting cultural connections for both students and adults. As ET we are trying to break down the barriers of language, culture and geography by providing international travel experiences to teachers and students in North-America.
Target group of the organization: North American (highschool) students
Company culture: Within our regional office there is an informal athompshere. Contact with other offices and Lucerne (main office) tends to be more formal- but overall a very informal company. Since you’re working with tour directors (and colleagues) the atmosphere is really relaxed. Everyone is so friendly!
Since there is no noticable hierachy – you will feel part of the team immediately.
Number of employees: 7
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 work for the regional office (there are several regionals offices all over the world). This means we (as the RO) have to provide and help the tour directors with getting the right information about their tours.
Brief description of your daily activities: – sending our tour information packages(online) to tour directors
– distributing tour materials to the tour directors (tablets, oyster cards, vouchers etc.)
– checking post tour paperwork
– helping out TDs via phone/email
– sending out WEX cards (prepaid creditcard) and other supplies to tour directors and other office
– helping out with the selection of new TDs
– other tasks that come up along the way
Brief description of your company assignment: Trying to find out what the difference is of customized tours compared to not customized tours. I will use qualitative surveys to give advice to EF. Moreover I will investigate the feedback given by tour directors related to the tour itinerary.

Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: My supervisor (Tammie Sebelius) is such a lovely woman. She is very friendly and is always open for questions. She gives you a lot of responsibilty.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? sociable, indepenent, team player, flexible, stress-proof
Additional company requirements for this placement? outlook, excel
English: Advanced
Spanish:
French:
German:
Italian:
Other languages:

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: airplane/public transport

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? family/friends
How did you go to work every day? public transport (took me 20 minutes)

Visa / work permit / vaccinations

Do you need a visa? no
Do you need a work permit? no
How did you arrange the necessary documents: NA
How much time did it take to arrange the necessary documents? NA
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? No, unless you feel insecure about your language skills. You will manage, there are so many international people in London (and in the company)- they are used to hearing different accents every day. You will learn once you’re here.

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € 300
Accommodation (monthly): € 800
Local transport (monthly): € 230 (EF will reimburse your monthly travel expenses)
General costs of living (monthly): € -/+ 400
Costs of visa: € 0
Costs of work permit: € 0
What did the company pay for/to you? EF will reimburse the following:
– monthly travel expenses (monthly travelcard)
– 8 GBP per day for lunch
– 1 return ticket
Everything will we reimbursed on a prepaid creditcard you will receive- you can use this creditcard like a normal creditcard.

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
I didn’t. I love being surrounded with international people so I already knew London would be like this.
Since my familiy lives in London, I learned a lot about the English culture while being here.

Did the culture of the country influence your performance during the placement in any way? no, not at all.

Future students on placement

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

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: If you have any connections in London- use them. My family lives in London so I stayed there for the first two weeks. Since I already knew I couldn’t stay there for the rest of my internship- I contacted a friend of mine who lives in London. She used to live with this family, that I am staying with right now!
If you don’t have any connections in London- I would suggest maybe getting in touch with your new colleagues- they might have some connections.
Personally I didn’t want to rent a room from websites like gumtree since you are not able to see the room yourself before going here.
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: What is there not to see? London has plenty possibilities to enjoy yourself. You can easily discover other cities as well from London (such as Oxford, Bath, Brighton, Bournemouth etc.)
During the week there a plenty of options too- the office is Located in Oxford Street (near Bond Street station)- which is very central

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link