Enjoy Apartments

Placement organization

Name of organization: Enjoy Apartments
Town/city: Barcelona
Country: Spanje
Website: https://www.enjoyapartments.com/

Name of student: Marloes Houterman

Specialist area: MTT
Placement period: 2016-2017

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Apartment agency
Organization’s activities: Enjoy Apartments mainly operates as a company renting out apartments. Besides monthly- and long-term renting out of apartments, they also offer short trips. Enjoy Apartments is headquartered in Barcelona, Spain. There are many apartments people can book through Enjoy Apartments, but there are only some apartments that are owned by the company. This means that the company does not only handle bookings, but also fieldwork such as checking the apartments, cleaning the apartments, be a contact person for guests and welcoming the guests.

Besides this, Enjoy Apartments is also active as an OTA (Online Travel Agency). This means that Enjoy offers apartments as an intermediary. So, they receive the bookings and publish advertisements, but are not doing any fieldwork for these apartments. Presenting the apartments of external suppliers happens according to a commission model. Enjoy Apartments receives a commission from external suppliers for the selling of the product, which is the apartment in this case. The company does not have any influence on prices, occupancy rate, etc.
Target group of the organization: 20-60
Company culture: Enjoy Apartments is a really small company, with two permanent employees (and other interns). That’s the reason that Enjoy Apartment can give personal service and have personal contact with the guests. Also because Enjoy Apartment work with a really small number of employees everbody is really helpful and open to each other. There is no hierarchy and really informal.
Number of employees: 3
Dress code: casual
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Yes

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working? Revenue and channelmanagement
Brief description of your daily activities: The head task are channel and revenue management. Besides that you do operational tasks.

By channel management you have to think about:
– Keep the channels up-to-date, to make sure that all the channels have correct information
– Checking the calenders every day

By revenue management you have to think about:
– Making revenue sheets
– Look at the new or cancelled bookings
– Check pricing overall and update them where is needed

By operational task you have to think about:
– Do check inns and check-outs
– Call and emailing with owners and guests

Brief description of your company assignment: Enjoy Apartments want to work in the future again with a franchise model. I have to invest what the easiest way is how Enjoy Apartments can work with the channel and revenuemanagement in the franchise network.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: Great! It’s a good company who helps wherever is possible and everbody is really friendly.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? Teamplayer, sociable, stress-proof, representable
Additional company requirements for this placement? Writting skills, working with excel and Google DRIVE
English: Advanced
Spanish: Basic
French: Basic
German: Basic
Italian: Basic
Other languages: The company is from a dutch owner so it’s easy if you can speak dutch. But the headlanguage on the office is english.

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: Airplane

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? Friends from the study (Rent Room Barcelona)
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

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € 200/250 include suitcases
Accommodation (monthly): € 450
Local transport (monthly): € 30
General costs of living (monthly): € 400
Costs of visa: € –
Costs of work permit: € –
What did the company pay for/to you? Nothing

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
I already have spanish lessons on school and buy some books about Barcelona. That is really helpful! Go with no expections. Then it can only be easy. Be open for new people and the spanish language!
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: marloes-houterman@hotmail.com

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: – Are not to be scared to speak and learn a new language. By speaking it only becomes more fun!
– Be open for new people, go to parties and meetings. Build a living here!
– Go live in an student flat, you meet a lot of people.
– Rent a bicycle for your internship time, take a 10 ways card or a 3 months public transport card. Depence what the distance is from the office.

The last thing, ENJOY your internship time!

Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: Do a bicycle or a sightseeing tour. You can see a lot in a short time! Go to little streets, there is the food really good and cheap. Find the local places!

Other things you have to see:
Daily activities
– Montjuic
– Montserrat, you really have to go there!
– Girona
– Tarragona

Relaxing places:
– Barceloneta
– Ciutadella Park
– Arc de Triomf

For good restaurants go:
– Sol Soler
– Vinitus
– Bosque Palermo
– Brunch & Cake (!)
– Vicino Pizza Bar.

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link