Bike2Malaga

Placement organization

Name of organization: Bike2Malaga
Town/city: Malaga
Country: Spanje
Website: http://www.bike2malaga.com/

Name of student: Renee Lunenburg

Specialist area: MTT
Placement period: 2015-2016

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Bike rental / bike tours
Organization’s activities: Bike2Malaga is a company where people can rent bikes and doing bike tours. They offer their clients different kinds of bikes and different kinds of tours. The most booked tour of Bike2Malaga is the City Bike Tour. With this tour you go through the historical city centre of Malaga and along the coast and the harbour of the city. Next to the tours in Malaga the company also offers tours in Marbella. Besides that the company offers many different kinds of bikes. Easy city bikes but also road bikes. Bike2Malaga has also an extra service, this is the delivery and pick up service. When people not staying in Malaga but for example in Ronda or another city in the surroundings of Malaga, Bike2Malaga has a Delivery and Pick-up service.
Target group of the organization: 60% Dutch people, 40% Germans, English, Spanish, etc.
Company culture: Bike2Malaga is at this moment a small company but you see that is is growing in this moment. At this moment there are working 11 people but sometimes this is not enough. Bike2Malaga is an informal company, you know all your collegues an the atmosphere in the company is very good. Vladimir and Asia are the owners of the company and there work also 3 shop managers. At this moment there were working 2 mechanics and the rest of the employees at the moment of my internship were also intern or allround employees.
Number of employees: 11
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 officialy in the marketing department of the company but the company is very small so there are not really departments in this company. So if you work in this company you have to do all the work activities of the company.
Brief description of your daily activities: During my internship at Bike2Malaga I did all the office activities: Answering E-mails, Making new reservations for tours and bike rentals, help customers in the bike shop, Marketing social media. And I also did the City Bike tours and the Wine and Tapas tour. If you are afraid to talk to bigger groups don’t do your internship at Bike2Malaga. Sometimes you have to give guiding tours and especially when you are Dutch they also really need you for the guiding tours and not only for the office work.
Brief description of your company assignment: Making new cooperations with hotels and B&B’s in Malaga and surroundings. If you want to do something for school you really have to talk with your supervisor about this. It can be very busy in the company so be clear and tell your collegues that you really need some time for your school asignments as well.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: My supervisor was a Dutch girl Marisa who was just graduated from NHTV. This was very helpfull during my internship because she knew exactly how everyting works at NHTV. I could always ask her questions and I could tell her the things I didn’t agree in the company. The supervising was really good during my internship.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? Teamplayer, Flexible, Social, Stress-proof, open minded
Additional company requirements for this placement? MS office
English: Advanced
Spanish: Basic
French:
German:
Italian:
Other languages: Dutch is very important because 60% of the clients are from Holland. It is fine if you speak besides English and a little Spanish also other languages.

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: Airplane

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? www.easypiso.com
How did you go to work every day? By foot

Visa / work permit / vaccinations

Do you need a visa? No
Do you need a work permit? No
How did you arrange the necessary documents: –
How much time did it take to arrange the necessary documents? –
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? Yes, during my internship I did a Spanish language course this is also very needfull. Because some of the Spanish people speak very bad English.

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € 200
Accommodation (monthly): € 275
Local transport (monthly): € –
General costs of living (monthly): € 350
Costs of visa: € –
Costs of work permit: € –
What did the company pay for/to you? They paid me 15 euro per tour.
This is really a lot especially in high season. So if you give a lot of tours your life is very good in Malaga. Like my life was!

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
I prepaired nothing. I just went to Malaga and let’s see what happened.
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: 143397@nhtv.nl

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: Travelling during your period here in Malaga.
Malaga is perfect located for trips in the surroundings like: Cordoba, Sevilla, Granada, Ronda, Nerja.
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: The whole city is one big leisure possiblity

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link