Caribbean Tourism Organization

Placement organization

Name of organization: Caribbean Tourism Organization
Town/city: Richmond
Country: Groot-Brittannië
Website: http://onecaribbean.org

Name of student: Sara van de Vorstenbosch

Specialist area: ITMC
Placement period: 2015-2016

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: NTO
Organization’s activities:
CTO provides a wide range of advisory services to international institutions, national governments and public and private sector organizations. CTO continues to represent the Caribbean tourism industry’s interests in the UK on the implementation of the UK Air Passenger Duty.

The CTO UK Chapter is a forum where individuals connected with selling and providing travel services in the Caribbean, work together to develop greater awareness of the region and look to expand profit opportunities for its members.

Target group of the organization: UK market
Company culture: There is not that much of a hierarchy in here. Carol has her own office, but the door is always open.
Number of employees: 5
Dress code: casual
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Yes

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working? CTO UK Chapter –> Marketing department.
Brief description of your daily activities: Emails, Telephone, Large projects (creating catalogs for shows, Power Points) Meetings , Caribbean Travel Guru, Contacting the members, Send post, etc. In general, a lot of preparing for everyone. I could also attend some of the meetings and events. For example: conference calls with Barbados, the CTO Ball, The annual meeting, the Dive Show and the MICE event.
Brief description of your company assignment: Writing a proposal for creating a marketing plan in order to attract the Generation Y demographic to the Caribbean region.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: I got really good guidance when carrying out my internship with the CTO, UK. Everybody was there to help when necessary. The colleagues were really nice, friendly and sometimes in for a joke

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? Good understanding of English language, Independent, confident, sociable and flexible.
Additional company requirements for this placement? MS Office
English: Advanced
Spanish: Basic
French: Basic
German: Basic
Italian: Basic
Other languages:

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: Train

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? Myself, via www.spareroom.co.uk
How did you go to work every day? By train, transfer twice.

Visa / work permit / vaccinations

Do you need a visa? No
Do you need a work permit? No
How did you arrange the necessary documents: I did it all by myself.
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.

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € Depends, I went back to the Netherlands twice. Ryanair offers really cheap tickets to Stansted.
Accommodation (monthly): € 760
Local transport (monthly): € 280
General costs of living (monthly): € 1200
Costs of visa: € None
Costs of work permit: € None
What did the company pay for/to you? Compensation of 125 sterling pounds in cash per week for transport and lunch.

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
Watching Fawlty Towers and Monty Python
Did the culture of the country influence your performance during the placement in any way? Yes

Future students on placement

Future students are free to contact me for further information: Yes
My e-mail address: 122248@edu.nhtv.nl

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: Don’t walk the streets on your own when night starts to fall in Elephant & Castle.
Do start random conversations with people, arrange your contacts and make new friends! London can be very anonymous.
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: “London never sleeps”, however it does: at 2 a.m. in the weekends(!!)
Moreover, there is always something to do it just depends on what you like.

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link