Safe Journey Barcelona

Placement organization

Name of organization: Safe Journey Barcelona
Town/city: Barcelona
Country: Spanje
Website: http://www.safejourneybarcelona.com

Name of student: Aristeidis Kalaitzidis

Specialist area: ITTI
Placement period: 2014-2015

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Tour operator
Organization’s activities: Safe Journey Barcelona is an established independent inbound European travel agent and specialized incentive DMC tour operator, which provides trade transparency combined with the freedom to marry client expectation to quality original products. The company has the local knowledge executing products based on the seasonal timing to ensure value for leisure or business purposes regardless of the proposed budget to assure client satisfaction. In addition, the products are innovative and designed personally with professional management to maximize client experience on the city of Barcelona and to achieve the promised high standard experiences.
Target group of the organization: Inbound tourism
Company culture: Informal way of working
Number of employees: 1-10
Dress code: casual
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Yes

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working? Marketing
Brief description of your daily activities: The daily activities will include except from the assignment of the company about the marketing strategy plan, online marketing (Facebook, Twitter, blogs etc) and customer support.
Brief description of your company assignment: The company assignment consists of an online marketing strategy plan. Learn and study the relevant components of online marketing, with help from the company. Then draw a strategy plan up, by asking the questions, “where are we now?” and “where do we want to be?” The plan will consist of recommendations, plan of action and evaluation.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: My supervisor was really helpful and made me feel that I am part of the company after few days.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? Team player, Communication skills, Sociable
Additional company requirements for this placement? MS Office
English: Advanced
Spanish: Basic
French:
German:
Italian:
Other languages:

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: Airplane

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? Friends
How did you go to work every day? By foot

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

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € 150
Accommodation (monthly): € 325
Local transport (monthly): € 40
General costs of living (monthly): € 300-400
Costs of visa: €
Costs of work permit: €
What did the company pay for/to you? Transportation when I had to go somewhere out of the office for the purposes of the company.

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
The Spanish culture is not so different from the Greek one, so I can say that I did not make any special effort to prepare myself for it.
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: ariskalaitzidis@hotmail.com

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: The only thing that I can mention in this part is that the potential candidates should really be careful with the choice of accommodation here in Barcelona. The rents are quite expensive as they are in the Netherlands. I will advise the students not to find a place in the center of the city, because most of the times the apartments are old and not well retained.
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: Barcelona is a big city so there are a lot of leisure possibilities such as cultural options, great nightlife, sports activities etc. Depending on what kind of a person is, there are variety of options.

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link