Great Explorations / Randonnee Tours

Placement organization

Name of organization: Great Explorations / Randonnee Tours
Town/city: Vancouver
Country: Canada
Website: http://www.great-explorations.com

Student

Name of student: Simone Berlo

Specialist area: ITMC
Placement period: 2011-2012

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Tour operator
Organization’s activities: Operating guided and self guided cycling tours in North America, Europe and South East Asia.
Target group of the organization: Middle aged and retired North Americans with a high income and high education.
Company culture: The work atmosphere is very casual. Robbin is the owner of the company and the boss, there is one other employee and two interns. As an intern you are part of the staff and you will be highly involved in the company and get a lot of responsibility.
Number of employees: 4
Dress code: casual
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Yes

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working? Within the office there are 2 companies, Great Explorations and Randonnee Tours. The companies are really small, right now we are with 4 people in total, 2 working for each. There are no separate departments.
Brief description of your daily activities: Processing bookings, booking hotels, charging clients, answering the phone, preparing final trip packages for clients.
Brief description of your company assignment: Writing a competitive analysis
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: –

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? You have to be independent, everybody is very busy and they expect you to be able to figure things out by yourself. Flexibility, Robbin will probably ask you to work some weekends to help with events.Accuracy, since you will be busy with making invoices and processing payments.
Additional company requirements for this placement? Simply Accounting, Maximizer, Photoshop, Adobe.You will learn how to deal with these computer programs quite fast, you don’t have to have any experience with them beforehand.
English: Advanced
Spanish:
French:
German:
Italian:
Other languages: Any other language, especially French, Spanish and/or Italian is a plus

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: Airplane

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? Via a NHTV student which was already in Vancouver. Otherwise you can use Craigslist.
How did you go to work every day? By bike. There is a good bus and sky train system here, but I prefer not to pay for my transport.

Visa / work permit / vaccinations

Do you need a visa? Yes
Do you need a work permit? You will need to apply for an IEC
How did you arrange the necessary documents: Via the embassy that is located in Berlin. Usually you can apply from November on and it can take up to 3 months. Make sure you keep an eye on when they start accepting visa applications, since there is a limited number. Also check when you enter Canada if they write down the correct expiration date on your visa, the lady at customs gave me a wrong visa which said I had to leave the country within 6 months.
How much time did it take to arrange the necessary documents?
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? n/a

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € 900,00
Accommodation (monthly): € 350,00
Local transport (monthly): € 21,00
General costs of living (monthly): € 300,00
Costs of visa: € 110,00
Costs of work permit: €
What did the company pay for/to you? They provided me with a bike.

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? No, the culture is quite the same. Of course there are differences with the Netherlands, I had to get used to how to communicate with US clients.

Future students on placement

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

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: You will have to be accurate and if you are motivated and independent you will be fine. Robbin is an easy going nice guy which makes it pleasant to have him as a boss.
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: Vancouver is an awesome city with spectacular views, nice beaches and pubs. You’re able to ski and surf in the same season and you can even visit San Francisco if you take some days off.

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link