Great Hotels of The World

Placement organization

Name of organization: Great Hotels of The World
Town/city: London
Country: Groot-Brittannië
Website: http://www.ghotw.com

Name of student: Maria Dyachok

Specialist area: MT
Placement period: 2013-2014

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Global sales and marketing company
Organization’s activities: A full service hotel representation company with “evolution inside” providing sales, marketing and reservation distribution services to over 200 hotels globally. Optimize resources and add value through three categories of membership for your primary source markets; MICE, Corporate and Leisure as part of our Luxury, Premium or Classic collection.
Target group of the organization: event planners/organizers
Company culture: informal
Number of employees: 70
Dress code: casual
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Yes

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working? MICE – Meetings Incentives Conferences Events.
During the forums, roadshows and by the business meetings of the pro-active manager the company gets new business in. We receive enquiries and in this way we provide business for the hotel members of GHOTW.
Brief description of your daily activities: To effectively co-ordinate MICE (meetings incentives conferences events) leads/booking requests generated via GHOTW website, (MICE) Sales Manager, email, fax and/ or telephone:
Provide administration support to the MICE Sales Department and the MICE Sales Manager
To maintain and update our database e.g. with new client details and other details
To answer incoming calls for the conference desk and to action inquiries accordingly
Calling for Roadshows to make appointments with agencies, corporates etc

Brief description of your company assignment: Creating Fact sheets of the hotel members of GHOTW. Those Fact sheets will be used for forums, roadshows and other business meetings. All the fact sheets will have the corporate identity of GHOTW.
The Fact sheet needs to describe the hotel regarding accommodation, unique selling points, location but especially the meeting space, as this is important for event planners.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: The supervision is really good at GHOTW. If I need help with something, they help me.
But they also give me a lot of space for my own input during the work. In this company you get a lot of responsibilities so I didn’t feel like a intern actually.
Every team has his own manager, but your contact with the manager is really informal and you can discuss everything. They give you a lot of trust.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? sociable, team player, flexible, independent, organized
Additional company requirements for this placement? good writing skills, good English oral skills, excel
English: Advanced
Spanish: Basic
French: Basic
German: Basic
Italian: Basic
Other languages:

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: airplane, boat, train

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? agency
How did you go to work every day? public transport (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? No
Would you recommend to have a language course prior to this placement? If your English is poorly it is good to take a course, but during your intern ship you improve the language the most

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € 200
Accommodation (monthly): € 750
Local transport (monthly): € 120
General costs of living (monthly): € 500
Costs of visa: € –
Costs of work permit: € –
What did the company pay for/to you? Transport travel card max 160 pounds a month
lunch money 25 pounds per week

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
By doing some research on the internet.
And I have been in London and other places in the UK before, so already knew about the culture
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: maria-1990@live.nl

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: Act pro active and be flexible. Listen good what they explain.
Show that you want to learn, come with own ideas
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: A lot of things are happening in London, you won’t be bored. However you need to save a lot of money in advance as it is an really expensive city

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link