Travelife for Tour Operators & Travel Agencies

Placement organization

Name of organization: Travelife for Tour Operators & Travel Agencies
Town/city: Breda
Country: NL – Noord-Holland
Website: https://www.travelife.info/index_new.php?menu=home&lang=en

Student

Name of student: Jiaqi He

Specialist area: Tourism Management (EN)
Placement period: 2019-2020

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Sustainability certificate company (NGO)
Organization’s activities: Provide tour companies 7 online courses (New online course will be published soon)
Desk-audit after companies finished their Travelife report
On-site audit for companies want to achieve the highest level of the Travelife certificate (companies’ coaches will go to the host office and check everything)
Target group of the organization: Tour operators & Travel agencies
Company culture: Founded in 2007, the Travelife Sustainability System is an initiative dedicated to promoting sustainable practices within the travel and tourism industry.

Travelife offers two separate but interrelated sustainability systems, aimed at travel companies and accommodations.

Travelife was launched in 2007 by ABTA the UK Travel Association and the Dutch ANVR travel association, with the support of Leeds Metropolitan University (UK), Lund University (Sweden) and ECEAT-Projects, a Dutch not-for-profit organization promoting sustainability in tourism, The Travelife methodology was developed during the EU supported LIFE project, based on sustainability management concepts developed by UNEP, the Tour Operators’ Initiative for Sustainable Tourism Development (TOI) and earlier experiences of ANVR and ABTA.
Number of employees: 8
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 department difference in Travelife. We are working together in one office.

Brief description of your daily activities: 1. Business phone calls with companies worldwide. (follow-up with their report writing, contacting newly registered companies to see if they want to join in the Travelife and so on)
2. Replying emails (writing emails)
3. Translation (translated the online courses into my mother tongue)
4. Skype meeting with companies which encounter any questions regarding the system and the report
5. Skype meeting with companies to show them how does the system work and how to fill the report. (Normally the meeting will take around 30 mins)
6. Marketing research (find companies, associations, travel fairs concern sustainability)
Brief description of your company assignment: I did China market research. The task was required to find as many China tour companies, travel associations, and travel fairs as possible.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: The company supervisor is quite hot-temper and very direct. The daily activities were actually busier than I thought.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? Independent, team player, sociable
Additional company requirements for this placement? Ms Office, writing skills
English: Intermediate

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: train

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? myself
How did you go to work every day? now is train, before was 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? Yes
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? No

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € 0
Accommodation (monthly): € 500
Local transport (monthly): € 480
General costs of living (monthly): € 400
Costs of visa: € 0
Costs of work permit: € 0
What did the company pay for/to you? 40% of transportation compensation
300 euros per month

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
Be open-minded, willing to share your thoughts
Did the culture of the country influence your performance during the placement in any way? A bit

Future students on placement

Future students are free to contact me for further information: Yes
My e-mail address: hjqhejia7@sina.com

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: work hard and try to make everything be perfect before reporting the task back to the company manager.
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: There is a small garden in the ground floor. The office is quite old.

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