Barrio-Life

Placement organization

Name of organization: Barrio-Life
Town/city: Barcelona
Country: Spanje
Website: http://barrio-life.nl/

Student

Name of student: Meike van Dongen

Specialist area: Tourism Management (EN)
Placement period: 2021-2022

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Travel organisation
Organization’s activities: Creating different kinds of trips to Andalusia, Portugal and Morocco. Focussing on sustainability and local activities. Some examples of trips they offer are walking trips, group trips and train trips.
Target group of the organization: Dutch tourists
Company culture: Informal, the management of Barrio-Life is informal. There is a weekly meeting at the end of the week with your own company supervisor. During this meeting, the week will be analyzed. When you have new innovative ideas on how to improve the companies structure, this can be discussed during this meeting and they take care of the feedback that is given by the interns.
Number of employees: 5
Dress code: casual
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Yes

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working?

Purchasing department

Brief description of your daily activities:

– country responsible; take care of purchasing trips to Andalusia, Morocco or Portugal.
– contact with stakeholders such as accommodations or activities.
– taking care of bookings in a CRM system.
– searching for the right accommodations that suit the needs and wants of the customer.
– creating a format that represents the accommodation with pictures and an interesting text.
– administrative tasks such as creating products and vouchers in the CRM system and linking invoices.
– wake up calls; reconfirm accommodations and activities just before arrival.
– projects; when there is an innovative idea this can be elaborated by interns.
– taking care of e-mails.
Brief description of your company assignment: My research was about the communication between the different stakeholders involved. I had to create a communication plan to reduce the small mistakes that are occurring because of the different stakeholders involved. The goal of this communication plan was to think of different communication strategies that could help Barrio-Life to improve its communication with the stakeholders. The main topics that have been researched are the customer journey, distribution channel and organizational and stakeholder analysis.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: The supervision of the organization is limited but good. They expect that interns have a high sense of responsibility because there are many tasks that are done by interns. However, there is a weekly meeting to discuss how the week went and if there are improvements.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? independent, stress-proof, proactive, problem solving, high sense of responsibility
Additional company requirements for this placement? verbal and writing skills in English and preferable in Spanish but this is not necessary.
English: Intermediate
Spanish: Basic
French:
German:
Italian:
Other languages: Dutch, intermediate

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: airplane

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? HousingAnywhere, this is an intermediary between the tenant and landlord
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? 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): € 150
Accommodation (monthly): € 470
Local transport (monthly): € 27
General costs of living (monthly): € 200
Costs of visa: €
Costs of work permit: €
What did the company pay for/to you? There was a financial compensation of 200 euros a month. This compensation was based on 4 days of working and one project day.

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
I did some research about the differences between Catalonia and Spain and had a look at the different national holidays.
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: 191021@buas.nl

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do:

– I would recommend having a credit card when doing an internship abroad. This can be very helpful in your free time when you decide to go on a trip but also when using taxis or food apps.
– Take care of your valuable items when walking through the city, Barcelona is a city known for pickpockets.
– I would recommend purchasing a metro ticket for 90 days, this costs 80 euros and you can use it unlimited for 90 days. The metro is a popular mode of transport in Barcelona.
– At the beginning of your internship, I would recommend doing a local bike tour through the city. In this way, you have some more background information about the city and it is easier to decide where to go during the whole period of your stay.
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place:

– Visiting cities around Barcelona such as Sitges, Vic, Andorra, and Girona. These cities are easily accessible by train. If you want to be surrounded by nature and experience a different culture, you should definitely visit these cities.
– Visiting a flamenco show in the city of Barcelona, there are many possibilities.
– Visiting Ibiza or another island, it only takes half an hour to arrive at Ibiza and it is worth it.

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