Stoke Travel

Placement organization

Name of organization: Stoke Travel
Town/city: Barcelona
Country: Spanje
Website: http://www.stoketravel.com

Name of student: Malon Sanderink

Specialist area: MT
Placement period: 2017-2018

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Tour operator
Organization’s activities: Stoke Travel is an Australian company based in Barcelona, that offers surf- and festival trips all over Europe.
Target group of the organization: Backpackers, students and budget travellers
Company culture: Stoke Travel has a very informal working atmosphere. Everybody is very welcoming and social, and the colleagues also spend a lot of time together in the weekends. Stoke Travel likes to call itself one big family, and it also feels like one. Sometimes it can be a bit unorganized, but that makes it more fun. The company is always in for new ideas or improvements.
Number of employees: 20-30
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 was working on the Bookings & Customer Services department.

Brief description of your daily activities: I started my day checking different OTA's like Booking.com, Expedia and Hostelworld to see if there were any new bookings. If there were, I had to put the new bookings into the system. Customer service, especially through email was also a part of my daily activities. The fun part was that every day was different, I needed around 1 hour to fnish my daily tasks, so the time I had left I did very various tasks.
Brief description of your company assignment: Barcelona is getting sick of tourists. Especially the drunk ones walking around the street making a lot of noise. Stoke Travel is a company that welcomes the kind of tourists the citizens of Barcelona hate the most. And this reflects badly on Stoke Travel's image. During my research, I had to look at a way to improve the image of Stoke Travel that the locals have of Stoke through the activities that Stoke Travel organises.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: When I started, a lot of my colleagues were at Oktoberfest in Munich, including my supervisor. The first view weeks I didn't have a lot of supervision, but I could always email my supervisor if I had a question. When she got back at the office, supervision was great. I could always ask her anything and she was very helpful. Stoke Travel is not the company that takes your hand and walks you through everything, they do expect that you can work independent.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? Independent, flexible, sociable and teamplayer
Additional company requirements for this placement? MS Office
English: Advanced
Spanish:
French:
German:
Italian:
Other languages: knowledge of other languages ​​is not compulsory but it is an advantage

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: Airplane

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? Myself, although Stoke also offers accommodation for a small price.
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? Barcelona is super international, but a little knowledge of Spanish could help you in some situations

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € 200
Accommodation (monthly): € 370
Local transport (monthly): € That depends on whether you depend on public transport
General costs of living (monthly): € 500
Costs of visa: €
Costs of work permit: €
What did the company pay for/to you? Nothing. But I could come with on the trips for cost price only, and festivals for free.

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
Not really, i've visited Spain before and knew what to expect.
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: 152439@edu.nhtv.nl

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: Go on as many festivals you can with Stoke; they are amazing!

If you do not like to party or have drinks, and you need an super organized workplace Stoke Travel might not be the right company for you.
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: I loved to go to The Bunkers in El Carmel with friends. It is close to Parc Guell, you'll have an amazing view over the city from here and the atmosphere is great.
If you have seen all the normal tourists highlights in Barcelona, try to go a bit further from the city: do the hike on the Montserrat or visit Sitges for a day.
El born and Gothic are the 2 prettiest neighbourhoods in Barcelona.
Spending a day at the beach is never a bad idea.

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link