Buffalo Tours

Placement organization

Name of organization: Buffalo Tours
Town/city: Bangkok
Country: Thailand
Website: http://www.buffalotours.com

Student

Name of student: Annis de Goede

Specialist area: MTT
Placement period: 2012-2013

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Tour operator
Organization’s activities: Buffalo Tours offers tailor-made packages, FIT, GIT, incentives to a variety of nationalities. Operate all tours in-house and manage their own guide, transport,tour leader pool and provides dedicated customer-care/service. Furthermore, they are front runners in the field of responsible, volunteer and educational tourism.
Target group of the organization: Dutch, German, British, American, Spanish, French market.
Company culture: Within the office there is an informal and casual atmosphere. The majority of the employees are Thai, there are 2 Dutch managers, 1 Dutch employee in charge of customer care and the GM is from Denmark. Thai people are in general more polite and show more respect than Western people, so you need to be aware of the differences in culture.
Number of employees: 40
Dress code: casual
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Yes

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working? Sales, Operations, Reservations, Purchasing, Accountings, Customer care, Product development, Human Resources. I worked in Operations.

Brief description of your daily activities: I have worked within the Operations Department, they handle all the services concerning a tour; from tour leader till transfers, excursions and accommodations. Some other tasks during my internship were updating all the optional tours and projects over a longer period of time. I also welcomed guest in Pattaya, Hua hin and Cha-am.
Brief description of your company assignment: My assignment was to make a destination analyses focused on the optional excursions.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: The company gave me a lot of freedom concerning my assignments and tasks. My supervisor first wanted to know where I was interested in and then we created a schedule for the whole 5 months.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? Independent, social, assertive, spontaneous, flexible, able to work in a multi-cultural team
Additional company requirements for this placement? Word, Excel. Buffalo works with their own system. You will get used to this if you’re generally comfortable with computers
English: Advanced
Spanish:
French:
German:
Italian:
Other languages: Dutch excellent

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: Airplane

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? Myself with a lot of help from the company, when I arrived I inspected a few apartments and finally chose one I wanted.
How did you go to work every day? By foot or motor taxi

Visa / work permit / vaccinations

Do you need a visa? Yes, I had a Educational Visa with multiple entries
Do you need a work permit? No
How did you arrange the necessary documents: I went to the Thai embassy in The Hague. They needed a copy from my placement-contract, a few statements from the company and the visa form which you can download on the website of the embassy. The Visa is valid for 90 days, and you can extend it in Thailand by crossing the border or to go to the Dutch embassy in Bangkok.
How much time did it take to arrange the necessary documents?
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): € 780,00
Accommodation (monthly): € 200,00
Local transport (monthly): € 0,00
General costs of living (monthly): € 300,00
How long in advance did you apply for visa I already had a lot from prior traveling so I just needed one 5 days before I left.
Costs of visa: € 160,00
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 really
Did the culture of the country influence your performance during the placement in any way? The Thai English is hard to understand. You really have to listen good because of their pronunciation of words for instant an R becomes an L.

Future students on placement

Future students are free to contact me for further information: Yes
My e-mail address: 111699@edu.nhtv.nl

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: Bangkok is a great and huge city, although you sometimes really need to escape from it and enjoy a weekend on the beach or upcountry.
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: In Bangkok are many things to visit and to do; temples, markets, parks etc. You really have to do the cycling tours; it is a great way of exploring the local life.
It is very easy to travel around through Thailand. The nearest beach from Bangkok is Chaam and Hua Hin, they are only 4 hrs driving by minivan. I also visited Koh Chang and Koh Samet when I had more days of. Upcountry is easy to reach by train or domestic flight.

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link