XO Africa

Placement organization

Name of organization: XO Africa
Town/city: Cape Town
Country: Zuid-Afrika
Website: http://www.xoafrica.com

Student

Name of student: Nina van Kempen

Specialist area: ITMC
Placement period: 2012-2013

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: tour operator
Organization’s activities: Making tailor made packages for indiviudal travelers, incentives and events
Target group of the organization: High end (3 to 5 star accommodations) individual travelers with tailor made packages. XO Africa’s main markets are coming from France followed Italy and Spain.
Company culture: Everyone at the office is open and social towards each other. The atmosphere is very relaxed, also between the management and director and the consultants. The position of me as a student was just the same as the rest of the company. Everybody respects each other.
Number of employees: approx. 40 at XO, 15 in FIT
Dress code: casual
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Yes

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working? FIT, Finance, Administration, DMC, Marketing & Management
I worked in FIT (Foreign individual traveler)
Brief description of your daily activities: – Preparing and compiling traveling documents for clients in French and English
– Preparing programs for clients by checking availability and mailing to suppliers for provisional booking and confirmation
– Quoting itineraries
– Assisting FIT team as required with other small tasks like translations, descriptions, updating the system and research for special requests

Brief description of your company assignment: The placement assignment involves all the workday activities and being able to work at the pace as the other consultants. This includes understanding the programs being used and the workday activities and other small tasks will be given in order to get the intern on the level which is needed to work at the same pace as the other consultants. As it is a very busy year for XO Africa, an extra consultant is the best help they could have and was most appreciated at that moment.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: My company supervisor was Erika, who is very friendly! She was a good supervisor even though she was pretty busy all the time. Very open minded and easy to work with as she makes you feel at ease right away

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? Flexible, eager to learn, positive, social but most of all the motivation of putting into action what you have learned during your studies at NHTV.
Additional company requirements for this placement? Word, powerpoint, adobe, internet
English: Advanced
Spanish:
French: Advanced
German:
Italian:
Other languages:

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: Airplane

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? By myself by looking at gumtree.co.za and rooms4rent.co.za for example. I lived in Observatory which is a student village so there were a lot of student houses (be on time with arranging accommodation as it is very popular!)
How did you go to work every day? Foot (15 minute walk)

Visa / work permit / vaccinations

Do you need a visa? Yes
Do you need a work permit? No
How did you arrange the necessary documents: Embassy in the Hague
How much time did it take to arrange the necessary documents? Took 1,5 month as the department of south Africa in The Hague is really slow and a lot of documents need to be prepared
Did you need certain vaccinations? Yes

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? n/a

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € 875,00
Accommodation (monthly): € 300,00
Local transport (monthly): € 20,00 (50 cent to go to the city centre!)
General costs of living (monthly): € 250,00
How long in advance did you apply for visa One month for Hep A+B
Costs of visa: € 50,00
Costs of work permit: €
What did the company pay for/to you? EUR 200,00 per month

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
I did not.
Did the culture of the country influence your performance during the placement in any way? Not really

Future students on placement

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

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: Inside the organization:
What to do: be open and open minded, be flexible, double check
What not to do: stress, be rude to clients

Outside the organization
What to do: use the minibus as it is extremely cheap and easy! Take care of your personal belongings, see as much of SA as possible, it is beautiful!!
What not to do: don’t go in an empty mini bus, don’t walk alone

Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: Hiking lion’s head, table mountain, devil’s peak and cederberg.
Shark cage diving and whale watching in Hermanus
Garden route
Green market square

Restaurants:
– Timbuktu (longstreet)
– Ganesch (Observatory)
– Touch of Madnes (Observatory)
– Blue Marlin (Observatory)
– Obz Café (Observatory)
– Royal eetcafé (Lonstreet)
– Simply Asia (Shortmarket)
– Foodmarkets

Enjoy Cape Town, you will love it!!

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link