Wildlife Tours Australia

Placement organization

Name of organization: Wildlife Tours Australia
Town/city: Melbourne
Country: Australië
Website: http://www.wildlifetours.com.au/

Name of student: Isabelle van den Bekerom

Specialist area: MT
Placement period: 2014-2015

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Small Group Touroperator
Organization’s activities: Wildlife Tours Australia offers 1, 2 and 3 day tours in and around Victoria. They offer 1 Day Great Ocean Road Tours, 1 Day Great Ocean Road Sunset Express Tours, 1 Day Phillip Island Penguin Parade Tours, 1 Day Grampians Tours, 1 Day Mornington Peninsula Wine Tours, 1 Day Yarra Valley Wine Tours, 1 Day Snow Tour, 2 Day Great Ocean Road & Grampians Tours (Melbourne return, Melbourne to Adelaide and Adelaide to Melbourne), 2 Day Great Ocean Road & Phillip Island Tours, 3 Day Great Ocean Road & Grampians Tours (Melbourne return and Melbourne to Adelaide). They also do personalised group charters.
Target group of the organization: budget conscious travellers
Company culture: Wildlife Tours is one big family. Everybody and all departments work together as one team and the atmosphere between colleagues is really good. No one is better than the other. From the first day you start at Wildlife Tours you will feel at home.
Number of employees: 15
Dress code: casual
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Yes, absolutely

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working? During my placement I was mainly working in the reservations department. Further I also got the chance to operate in the marketing and operations departments.
Brief description of your daily activities: Reservations: Booking in tours in the system, replying to emails from agents and customers, answering phones from agents and customers and doing other administrative tasks.

Marketing: Visiting hotels/hostels to hand out brochures and to maintain the contact. Marketing is all about maintaining a good and healthy relationship with other companies and customers.

Operations: Making sure the manifests for the drivers are correct, making the busses ready for the tours, pick up customers who stay outside the city. Basically just making sure everything for that drivers is done.
Brief description of your company assignment: My company assignment was to gain insight into post tour services, in order to develop and implement a brand new post tour service for Wildlife Tours. This brand new post tour service will enable Wildlife Tours to offer discounts and specials to people after they have travelled with them. The service will also enable Wildlife Tours to encourage them to review their experiences on places like Facebook, Google Reviews and TripAdvisor.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: The supervision is really good! They always make sure I’m okay and told me from the start that if anything’s wrong or bothering me or if I needed some time for myself, I should tell them so they could help me. They were also very happy to help me when I didn’t know how to do something or didn’t know how something works.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? flexible, sociable, teamplayer, stress-proof, wanting to learn and you need an eye for detail.
Additional company requirements for this placement? Word, Excel, 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? Wildlife Tours arranged a hostel for me for the first month. After 1 month I moved to a house.
How did you go to work every day? The first month I lived in the city so I took the train to work. From the trainstation I had to walk 25/30 minutes to work. When I moved to my house I rode my bike to work. This took about 20 minutes.

Visa / work permit / vaccinations

Do you need a visa? Working Holiday Visa
Do you need a work permit? No
How did you arrange the necessary documents: I arranged my visa online
How much time did it take to arrange the necessary documents? About 2/3 days
Did you need certain vaccinations? No
How long in advance?

Language course

Did you take a language course before you started your placement? Yes
Would you recommend to have a language course prior to this placement? It depends on your level of English. You need to be able to communicate with customers who might not speak english that well. Therefore it can be difficult if your English is not Advanced level.

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € My return ticket was €1258,00.
Accommodation (monthly): € €500
Local transport (monthly): € €100
General costs of living (monthly): € €500/€600
Costs of visa: € €400
Costs of work permit: €
What did the company pay for/to you? Wildlife Tours covers your accommodation costs up to €600 a month.

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
I didn’t. I thought the best way was to find out when I was here and I still think this is the best way. You will go there open minded and that makes it a lot easier to adapt to the differences. Australian’s are the most friendly, sociable and open people.
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: isabellevdbekerom@hotmail.com

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: Just be yourself en do the best you can! Don’t try to be anyone you’re not and be open for new things!
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: I love Melbourne! It’s the best city I have ever been too, like I could live here for the rest of my life. There is so much to do: beach, shopping, partying, going out for dinner, sporting, attractions, just everything!

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link