Viña Casa Marín

Placement organization

Name of organization: Viña Casa Marín
Town/city: Santiago / Lo Abarca
Country: Chili
Website: http://www.casamarin.cl

Student

Name of student: Hannes Herber

Specialist area: ITMC
Placement period: 2011-2012

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Winery
Organization’s activities: Primary making and selling wine, secondary receiving tourists
Target group of the organization: High class American and Brazilian wine tourists
Company culture: Very casual, nearly friend like atmosphere. As a student you get a lot of responsibilities as you are in charge of the tourism
Number of employees: 6 office employees
Dress code: casual
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Yes

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working? Tourism (was the only one next to my supervisor)
Brief description of your daily activities: Reservations of tours and accommodation, giving tours through the winery, customer follow ups, maintenance of FB, twitter, trip advisor, booking.com, organization of tours with rest of the winery staff, some financial activities, helping organize events, attend events like wine dinners

Brief description of your company assignment: Sales and marketing plan for tourism part
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: Great supervisor, young, engaged, helpful, giving away responsibilities,

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? Independent, flexible, representable, good customer skills
Additional company requirements for this placement? Word, exel, PPT
English: Advanced
Spanish: Advanced
French:
German:
Italian:
Other languages:

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: Airplane

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? Company arranges the accommodation, you live with the family next to the winery, though you have the chance to work couple of days in Santiago (where the commercial office is located)
How did you go to work every day? At the winery by foot, in Santiago by metro

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? No
How long in advance?

Language course

Did you take a language course before you started your placement? Yes
Would you recommend to have a language course prior to this placement? Yes, I did mine at Ecela Santiago

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € 1000,00
Accommodation (monthly): € 0,00
Local transport (monthly): € 20,00 (depending how much time you spend in Santiago)
General costs of living (monthly): € 100,00 (depending how much time you spend in Santiago)
Costs of visa: €
Costs of work permit: €
What did the company pay for/to you? EUR 150,00 per month, accommodation at the winery and meals and a lot of free rides to Santiago

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
I have travelled so much already, so I did not really need to prepare a lot
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: hannesh21@hotmail.com

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: Do everything that feels right! So many great possibilities to network in the worldwide wine business, visit Chilean winery, really get to know what wine tourism is about – and, it is awesome!
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: In Santiago there is a lot to do, everything is quite close, great chances to travel to the Andes, the pacific; generally quite adventuress!

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link