Experience Scotland

Placement organization

Name of organization: Experience Scotland
Town/city: Penicuik
Country: Groot-Brittannië
Website: http://experiencescotland.co.uk/

Student

Name of student: Charlotte Sars

Specialist area: ITTI
Placement period: 2014-2015

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Destination Management Company
Organization’s activities: Experience Scotland is a Destination Management Company. This company organizes tailor made trips, from incentive trips to conferences, product launches or leisure trips. Experience Scotland arranges everything except for the flight to Scotland. This can include accommodation, transportation, guides and visits.

Target group of the organization: Mostly French or Belgian people, however the company is expiring to all over Europe. Mostly businesses organizing incentive trips
Company culture: The company has a very informal culture. Most of the employees have a different cultural background and there is an open-door policy. Everyone is easily approachable.
Number of employees: 5 full time, 4 interns
Dress code: casual
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Almost all of them.

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working? Experience Scotland is a small company and therefore there is no real division of departments. However, every employee specializes on one area. I am working with my colleague who is in charge of incentives and conferences.
Brief description of your daily activities: My daily activities usually consist of creating proposals for clients. This means that I have to make provisional bookings, create PowerPoint presentations and write up budgets/quotes.
Moreover, I also have my own groups for which I have to make sure that everything is organized before they arrive. This means phoning suppliers and being in contact with the client.
Brief description of your company assignment: For my company assignment I will have to execute a competitor analysis and see what we as a company can improve. Therefore I also need to research the developments in the DMC market in general. The goal is to give my employer some new insights into his business.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: It was average overall.
I had the misfortune that during my placement it was the busiest time the company had ever experienced. Therefore it was really hard to get guidance from my colleague with who I worked.
Therefore I had to work very independently on things that I had never done before. This was quite hard sometimes. Therefore I would have liked to have some more guidance and help because I was an intern and I was there to learn.
However, I have talked to my employer a few times and he was always willing to help me.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? Independent, team player, sociable, flexiblee, stress-prrof
Additional company requirements for this placement? Office, writing skills
English: Advanced
Spanish:
French: Basic
German:
Italian:
Other languages:

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: I took my car to Scotland on the boat.

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? The company organized this for me.
How did you go to work every day? By car.

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? No. Withina a few weeks your English will improve significantly.

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € €150 by flight, €320 by boat
Accommodation (monthly): € I don’t need to pay for my accomodation.
Local transport (monthly): € By bus it’s €20 per week
General costs of living (monthly): € 200
Costs of visa: €
Costs of work permit: €
What did the company pay for/to you? My company pays for my accommodation.

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
I didn’t really.
Scotland’s culture is not too different to the Dutch culture so it wasn’t to hard to adjust.
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: cva.sars@gmail.com

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: Before you select this placement you really have to understand what kind of work this is.
I personally didn’t realize that I would actually create trips for people. I thought I would be much more involved with marketing or finance. This is not the case. With this internship you will actually create trips for incentive groups or individuals. Just make sure that this is really what you want.
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: I live in Edinburgh which is about 30 minutes by car from Penicuik.
Edinburgh is a beautiful city with so many great things to do. I would definitely recommend living in Edinburgh, it is really worth it.

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link