Tailor Made Safaris

Placement organization

Name of organization: Tailor Made Safaris
Town/city: St Lucia
Country: Zuid-Afrika
Website: https://www.tailormadesafaris.co.za/

Student

Name of student: Nick den Blanken

Specialist area: Associate degree
Placement period: 2019-2020

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Touroperator
Organization’s activities:
– Creating itineraries
– Commuication with clients and companies
– Creating WETU, Cost calculators,… to help selling the company
– Translating and writing texts in English and Dutch
Target group of the organization: 50-plussers, luxury travelers, young people, families
Company culture:
– Boss (and his wife)
– Director
– Senior sales team
– Junior sales team
– Financial team
Number of employees: 15
Dress code: casual
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Not quite

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working?

Junior sales team. We create itineraries based on the client’s wishes. We are the person between the client and accommodations. Based on the info and rates we create cost calculators and WETU (fancy powerpoint), in order to sell these to the clients.
Furthermore I have project days, where I am busy with product management to set up new destinations abroad.

Brief description of your daily activities: Check mails and answer them.
Clients throughout the day, while keeping in touch with companies.
Build cost calculators and WETU when I have time.
Brief description of your company assignment: Deskresearch to find out whether we can set up destinations in Kenya and Tanzania. After the research find out which destinations we can sell abroad. Sort out a list afterwards and write texts for different target groups.

Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: We are allowed to walk in the bosses office two mornings per week for the project. The rest of the time the director keeps an eye on us. The supervision is okay, but could be much better.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? Flexible, stress-proof, hard-working
Additional company requirements for this placement? Excel and Word
English: Advanced
Spanish: Basic
French: Basic
German: Basic
Italian: Basic
Other languages: Dutch – advanced

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: Airplane

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? Company
How did you go to work every day? By foot

Visa / work permit / vaccinations

Do you need a visa? Yes, visitor’s visa
Do you need a work permit? No
How did you arrange the necessary documents: Company gave most documents to us
How much time did it take to arrange the necessary documents? A month
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? If you are not fluent, then yes

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € 600
Accommodation (monthly): € 0
Local transport (monthly): € 0
General costs of living (monthly): € 150
Costs of visa: € 33
Costs of work permit: € 0
What did the company pay for/to you? Accommodation

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
I didn’t. I’m partly South-African, so I was used to it
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: 164561@buas.nl

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: Make sure to have plenty money available. You will want to hire a car every now and then, since there is not much to do within the villlage.
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: There is one bar. Furthermore it is a touristic area; there is a safaripark, crocodile center, beach and great nature.

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