Nomad Adventure Tours

Placement organization

Name of organization: Nomad Adventure Tours
Town/city: Cape Town
Country: Zuid-Afrika
Website: http://nomadtours.co.za

Student

Name of student: David Roosjen

Specialist area: MTT
Placement period: 2013-2014

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Tour operator
Organization’s activities: Nomad Tours is an overland tour operator that organizes tours throughout Southern and Eastern Africa with their own trucks. They build and maintain them themselves and their main market is Europe.
Target group of the organization: Adventurers
Company culture: One can say that there’s a top-down culture going on. In a company as big and as well known as this, I think it can’t work any other way. The employees advise with the managers and the managers advise with the owner. This way the work is perfectly divided. As for the social side, amongst the employees, there’s space for laughter and jokes, but it’s a hard working environment. Prepare to work as harder than you’ve ever worked before.
Number of employees: 65+
Dress code: casual
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Yes, they have.

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working? Every department really. One day I was working for reservations and the other day I worked for product. Have also been working for charters, bookings and accounts.
Brief description of your daily activities: – requesting rates with providers
– Assisting product manager
– checking invoices and query them when needed
– helping out charters by finding alternative accommodations/activities.
– Chasing suppliers
– working on the website by changing and perfecting linked systems
Brief description of your company assignment: To make a questionnaire that applied for the guides. This helped to improve the product. Asking the guides what THEY thought about the tour, it’s accommodations, activities, staff at the accommodations. I also wanted to check if they picked-up any details clients were complaining about. Nomad also does a questionnaire with the clients, but this way I got a whole new point of view.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: My supervisor gave me a lot of freedom. There was always work to do for me and every once in a while she checked up on me if I had something productive to do. If I didn’t, she’d give me something. This is not an internship where you would be doing nothing but browsing through the internet. She filled in the assessments on time and had a conversation with my school mentor to explain to him how I was doing. I don’t know how I could have been helped better. Did not feel like she could do better.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? Stress-proof, independent, team player, good skills in English.
Additional company requirements for this placement? MS Office (Word and especially Excel)
English: Intermediate
Spanish:
French:
German:
Italian:
Other languages:

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: Car

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? 4Exchange arranged this for me
How did you go to work every day? Car

Visa / work permit / vaccinations

Do you need a visa? Yes, an exchange/internship visa. Note: apply for it on time, you have to assemble a lot of forms.
Do you need a work permit? No
How did you arrange the necessary documents: Embassy, insurance, hospital.
How much time did it take to arrange the necessary documents? 1 week (I was lucky)
Did you need certain vaccinations? Yes
How long in advance? Depends on the vaccinations. Usually 2 months should be enough.

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): € 800
Accommodation (monthly): € 250-300
Local transport (monthly): € 100
General costs of living (monthly): € 600 (it’s cheap, but that’s why I spent so much)
Costs of visa: € 50
Costs of work permit: € –
What did the company pay for/to you? They gave me a free tour at the end (worth 800 euros) and they compensated me every month by paying R1500 (100 euro)

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
I didn’t. I took a long shot and you’ll learn to adapt.
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: davidroosjen@outlook.com

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: If you’re still in doubt whether to go abroad yes or no, I can tell you that it would regret you if you didn’t go. In my experience, I can say that South Africa is one of the most beautiful and most relaxed countries I’ve been to and this experience changed my life and point of view on things.
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: Everything there is to do in a big city:
– clubbing
– socializing
– beach
– surfing
– kitesurfing
– sight seeing
– check out the scenery (it’s worth it)
– A LOT of restaurants

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link