Wildlife Tours Australia

Placement organization

Name of organization: Wildlife Tours Australia
Town/city: Melbourne
Country: Australië
Website:

Name of student: Kim Schotman

Specialist area: MTT
Placement period: 2016-2017

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Tour operator
Organization’s activities: The organization offers small group tours to sightseeing destinations in and around Melbourne. This includes the Great Ocean Road, the Grampians and Phillip Island.
Target group of the organization: Everyone visiting Melbourne
Company culture: Wildlife Tours is one of the brands of Get Lost Travel Group. This is a family owned business with an amazing warm and friendly team. They make you feel welcome from the very first day. Everyone really appreciates the work you are doing and is always there to help you. There is an informal atmosphere.
Number of employees: 15
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 mainly worked at Reservations, but also spent some time working in the Marketing department.
Brief description of your daily activities: Most of the time:
– Answering phone calls ( from customers, hotels, drivers or travel agencies)
– Answering e-mails
– Making bookings

Sometimes:
– Delivering brochures to hotels and travel agencies in the city
– Visiting hotels and travel agencies
– Some cleaning or other easy tasks

The first weeks of my internship I had the great opportunity to go on the tours to become familiair with the products.

Brief description of your company assignment: The company wanted to get ingsight in the working of TripAdvisor. The team wanted to know whether it was possible to improve the ranking on TripAdvisor, and if so, what they had to do to achieve that. I examined a report with a full understanding of TripAdvisor and the usage of TripAdvisor by the target group. The outcomes led to an actionplan to improve the ranking of Wildlife Tours (and 2 other brands) on TripAdvisor.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: My supervisor was Marilou, she also studied at the NHTV and started as an intern a couple of year ago, too. She is really friendly and always there to help you.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? Flexible, stress-proof, sociable, independent
Additional company requirements for this placement? Excel, Word
English: Advanced
Spanish: Basic
French:
German:
Italian:
Other languages:

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: Airplane

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? Myself
How did you go to work every day? By public transport and walking

Visa / work permit / vaccinations

Do you need a visa? Working Holiday Visa
Do you need a work permit? No
How did you arrange the necessary documents: Website of the Government of Australia
How much time did it take to arrange the necessary documents? One week
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? Maybe, if your English is really bad

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € 1300
Accommodation (monthly): € 650
Local transport (monthly): € 110
General costs of living (monthly): € 500
Costs of visa: € 400
Costs of work permit: €
What did the company pay for/to you? They pay your accommodation up to $700, which is around €500.

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
I didn’t. Living in Australia is very similair to living in Europe. Everyone is really friendly.
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: Kimschotman-94@hotmail.com

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: I can really recommend an internship at Wildlife Tours. The team is amazing and I enjoyed every single day working with them. You will definitely learn a lot and gain an excellent work experience. It is also a great opportunity to improve your English language skills.
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: Melbourne is an amazing, multi-cultural city and there is always something nice to do!

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link