Tailor Made Safaris

Placement organization

Name of organization: Tailor Made Safaris
Town/city: St. Lucia
Country: Zuid-Afrika
Website:

Name of student: Doreen Karekezi

Specialist area: MTT
Placement period: 2016-2017

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Touroperator
Organization’s activities: Tailor Made Safaris offers tailor made tours through southern Africa. They put down tours together which include hire car, accommodation, activities or with needed private guide.
Target group of the organization: Dutch, British and America couples and families
Company culture: Tailor Made Safaris is quite an informal company. There is no dominant company culture and every employee is treated equally
Number of employees: 6
Dress code: casual
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Yes

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working? There is no specific department within Tailor Made Safaris. Every employee works on several things and gets involvement with multiple things. For example the booking (dealing with clients), the social media or other projects that are currently running. However, every employee will get his own tasks assigned.
Brief description of your daily activities: My daily activities consisted of sending and responding to emails, writing and translating text for the website and/or the self drive books, booking activities and accommodations and making photo books.
Brief description of your company assignment: My TMS assignment was about Travel Local. Travel Local is a British online travel intermediaire for small local tour operators world wide. With my research is was my job to find out why Tailor Made Safaris wasn’t getting that much enquiries on the platform. With the focus on the type of tours they were offering.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: As an intern at Tailor Made Safaris they let you do and figure out thing by yourself. Which gives you the freedom to deal and learn from mistakes. But of course there is always supervision at the office who will also help you with any questions.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? You have to be flexible, independent as well as a team player, but most important you have to know how to work efficiently and precise
Additional company requirements for this placement? Commercial writing skills
English: Advanced
Spanish:
French:
German:
Italian:
Other languages: Dutch – advanced/mother tongue

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: Airplane

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? Company offers accommodation
How did you go to work every day? Foot

Visa / work permit / vaccinations

Do you need a visa? Yes, work visa
Do you need a work permit? No
How did you arrange the necessary documents: Tailor Made Safaris will hand in all the necessary documents from their part. The rest will be provided by the embassy
How much time did it take to arrange the necessary documents? About two weeks
Did you need certain vaccinations? Yes
How long in advance? A month

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): € 650
Accommodation (monthly): € 0
Local transport (monthly): € 0
General costs of living (monthly): € 250
Costs of visa: € 30
Costs of work permit: € 0
What did the company pay for/to you? You don’t get a financial compensation because they already offer free accommodation

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
I didn’t because I am already familiar with the 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: 152178@edu.nhtv.nl

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: I recommend to start early with getting a visa! The South African Embassy in the Hague is quite strict and they care about every detail!
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: St. Lucia is a small town, but there is enough to do in the surroundings. If you hire a car you will be more able to discover the beauty this country has to offer!

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link