TaMáNa Tour Operator

Placement organization

Name of organization: TaMáNa Tour Operator
Town/city: Antananarivo
Country: Madagascar

Website:

Student

Name of student: Estnat Kallehauge-Engsted

Specialist area: ITMC
Placement period: 2013-2014

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Tour operator
Organization’s activities: Selling tours to Madagascar to mainly English speaking markets in a B2B environment.
Target group of the organization: English speaking markets (mainly UK)
Company culture: Informal and friendly atmosphere yet professional. Sharing of thoughts and ideas were encouraged.
Number of employees: 7
Dress code: casual
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Yes

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working? I was working on marketing related activities.
Brief description of your daily activities: Updating safari database and working on website visuals/content, as well as assisting in English assessment of driver guides.
Brief description of your company assignment: Was asked to conduct a market research/analysis of the UK market as part of determining whether expansion in the market would be viable.
Also creating a B2B satisfaction survey to help improve service quality.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: My company supervisor was also the general manager who gave me feedback on the work I produced and who also included me in the relevant decision making processes and asked for my advice. She was usually always available if I had any questions or suggestions. Very open to suggestions and thoughts.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? Independency, analytical skills, writing skills
Additional company requirements for this placement? MS Office, power point
English: Advanced
Spanish:
French:
German:
Italian:
Other languages: Speaking French would be a bonus but not absolutely necessary.

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: Airplane.

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? Company arranged accommodation.
How did you go to work every day? By public transport.

Visa / work permit / vaccinations

Do you need a visa? Yes, a 1 month tourist Visa which needs to be prolonged upon arrival.
Do you need a work permit? No
How did you arrange the necessary documents: Ministry of immigration in Antananarivo
How much time did it take to arrange the necessary documents? 3 weeks. It was a troublesome process where additional documents kept being requested.
Did you need certain vaccinations? Yes
How long in advance? I had the relevant ones already.

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? Yes, French will help a lot in the persons leisure time.

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € 1600 EUROS return for the airplane ticket. When going to Madagascar, you need to have the return ticket upon arrival to the country.
Accommodation (monthly): € Company paid.
Local transport (monthly): € Company paid but around 14 euros per month.
General costs of living (monthly): € Can be done extremely cheap, 50-100 euro per month (for food/entertainment)
Costs of visa: € Approximately 25 euros
Costs of work permit: € N/A
What did the company pay for/to you? Transport necessary in relation to work and accommodation.

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
I read about the history and culture of the country before traveling there. There are many aspects of it that will not be evident until you arrive, though, so you have to be prepared to be surprised (both positively and negatively).
Did the culture of the country influence your performance during the placement in any way? It might have.

Future students on placement

Future students are free to contact me for further information: No
My e-mail address: est_nat@hotmail.com

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: Do not walk around wearing valuables in plain sight: rape will not happen but robberies might. Don’t walk around alone at night, the lighting in the city is very bad and you are easy prey. Do not expect your Visa application to be painless (but be happy if it is). Do not expect luxury.

Do expect to see very poor people. Do expect that people will glare at you – tourists are not that common and you look different. Do enjoy yourself.
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: There are clubs and pubs available which are quite nice. Plenty of shopping opportunities, although much of it is second hand or from China/Korea. Andasibe is a very interesting national park which is reachable within a weekend (though a long weekend is recommended). There are nice natural and cultural/historical spots which can be reached in weekends from the city, although getting there with public transport is very time consuming.

Traveling via domestic flight is very expensive (200 euros one way) and is not very viable only for weekends. If you want to travel, it’s better to plan extra time after placement.

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link