Borneo Eco Tours SDN. BHD

Placement organization

Name of organization: Borneo Eco Tours SDN. BHD
Town/city: Kota Kinabalu
Country: Maleisië
Website: http://www.borneoecotours.com/

Student

Name of student: Mandy van Os

Specialist area: MT
Placement period: 2013-2014

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Touroperator
Organization’s activities: Borneo Eco Tours offers all kinds of tours through Borneo.
Target group of the organization: travellers between 30 – 70 with or without children
Company culture: The company’s culture is a mixture of formal and informal.
Number of employees: +/- 100
Dress code: formal
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Yes

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working? I’m working on the sales department.
Brief description of your daily activities: Answering e-mails from guests and a touroperators. Selling tours to potential guests. Booking tours, rooms, etc. And preparing welcome kits.
Brief description of your company assignment: I have two company assignments. The first is making a competitor analysis on 5 competitors of Borneo Eco Tours. The second assignment is giving ideas and recommendations on how the eco-lodge of Borneo Eco Tours (Sukau Rainforest Lodge) can be improved.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: The supervision is more then good. My colleauges around the office are friendly and helpfull and are never to busy to answer my questions or to help me out with something.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? teamplayer, sociable, flexible, stress-proof, representable
Additional company requirements for this placement? MS Office, english writing skills,
English: Basic
Spanish:
French:
German:
Italian:
Other languages:

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: Airplane

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? Company
How did you go to work every day? Public transport

Visa / work permit / vaccinations

Do you need a visa? Yes, tourist visa
Do you need a work permit? No
How did you arrange the necessary documents: Embassy Holland and Malaysia
How much time did it take to arrange the necessary documents? +/- 1 month
Did you need certain vaccinations? Yes
How long in advance? 2 months

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): € 1000
Accommodation (monthly): € 0 (Provided by the company)
Local transport (monthly): € 15
General costs of living (monthly): € 200
Costs of visa: € 40
Costs of work permit: € 0
What did the company pay for/to you? The company pays for my accomodation (Borneo Backpackers). They also payed my stay in Sukau Rainforest Lodge for two weeks. And they give me a allowance of RM 300 (75 euro) because I use public transport to get to work.

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
I read some about the culture on the internet and also used the cultural insights of Geert Hofstede to look for big differences between the Dutch culture and the Malay culture.
Did the culture of the country influence your performance during the placement in any way? No not at all

Future students on placement

Future students are free to contact me for further information: Yes
My e-mail address: 101431@edu.nhtv.nl

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: –
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: Kota Kinabalu has a lot of nice bars and restaurants. In front of the city are a few island with nice beaches who you can reach by boat.

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link