Groovy Grape Tours

Placement organization

Name of organization: Groovy Grape Tours
Town/city: Adelaide
Country: Australië
Website: http://www.groovygrape.com.au/

Name of student: Lisa Reijmers

Specialist area: MT
Placement period: 2014-2015

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Touroperator
Organization’s activities: Groovy Grape Tours specialises itself in all inclusive tours through South Australia, parts of the Northern Territory and Victoria.The company makes sure that no one needs to deal with nasty financial surprises, for this reason Groovy Grape tours are all inclusive. Team spirit is one of the keywords during a Groovy Grape tour, the groups are small with a maximum of 21 people, most of them young backpackers who not only want to have lots of fun, but seriously want to learn something about Australia and its culture
Target group of the organization: Young adventurous backpackers
Company culture: Business Owner
Operational Manager
Accountant Manager
Marketing Manager
Reservations team

Informal
Number of employees: 6
Dress code: casual
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Yes

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working? Mainly reservations, but marketing as well.
Brief description of your daily activities: – Taking bookings from travel agents and direct from customers via phone and e-mail
– Answering phone calls and e-mails from agents who want to check availability and from passengers with questions.
– Sending out emails to accommodation providers to cofirm incoming numbers or request upgrades.
– Taking care of the tour paperwork (manifest with all the passengers, tour-expenses forms, etc.), preparing the driver packs for the tour guides.
– Updating tour availability only
– Monthly occupancy Excel-document with pax numbers.
– Organizing and sending out brochures to travel agents.
– Sending out wine to travel agents who booked a package.
– Checking expenses and putting the data on the forms in Excel-documents
– Writing a blog for our customers after going on a tour.
– Translating/ updating the website
– Making advertisements on photoshop for specials
– Contribute for new ideas regarding socail media
– Writing blogs after a tour
– Cleaning and preparing tour busses in the yard once a week.

Brief description of your company assignment: Writing a marketing plan for one of the tours to attract more domestic travellers.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: If I asked for help they gave me some usefull help and tips to move on. They gave me a lot of freedom and space for own contribution and ideas.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? Social, enthusiastic, independent, patient, active, flexible
Additional company requirements for this placement? MS Office, Word, Excel, Photoshop, writing skills,
English: Advanced
Spanish:
French:
German:
Italian:
Other languages:

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: Airplane

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? The company arranged it for me
How did you go to work every day? I walked every day for 20 minutes

Visa / work permit / vaccinations

Do you need a visa? Working Holiday subclass 417
Do you need a work permit? no
How did you arrange the necessary documents: myself
How much time did it take to arrange the necessary documents? I was lucky I had my visa within 24 hours, but it can also take months so start arranging everything in time.
Did you need certain vaccinations? No
How long in advance? Vaccinations are optional

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): € 1012 euro return with Cathay Pacific 3 hours stop over in Hong Kong, perfect and cheap flight
Accommodation (monthly): € Groovy pays 500 AUS Dollar each month you need to pay $120 yourself per month
Local transport (monthly): € 20
General costs of living (monthly): € 300
Costs of visa: € 300 euro if I remember it right
Costs of work permit: € n/a
What did the company pay for/to you? 500 dollar for the house each month.
They give you the opportunity to go on their tours for free.

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
Letting go my expectations.
Did the culture of the country influence your performance during the placement in any way? Yes, it made it better because everyone is extremely friendly

Future students on placement

Future students are free to contact me for further information: Yes
My e-mail address: 121286@edu.nhtv.nl

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: Enjoy life and every possibility to go somewhere and discover as much as possible from Australia
Don’t stress
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: They say Adelaide is small and a bit of a sleepy city compared to Sydney or Melbourne. I think there is enough to do and everything is easy to reach. Visit the Adelaide Hills and the wine region, one of the many beaches and go out.

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link