Protours Chile

Placement organization

Name of organization: Protours Chile
Town/city: Puerto Varas
Country: Chili
Website: http://protoursdestinations.com/

Student

Name of student: Sina-Eileen Sommer

Specialist area: ITMC
Placement period: 2015-2016

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Tour Operator
Organization’s activities: The organization offers tailor made tours to customers from all over the world. The company mainly works with Chile, but also offers different services in Argentina, Peru and Bolivia.
Target group of the organization: Everyone
Company culture: informal
Number of employees: 40+
Dress code: casual
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Yes

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working? Sales & Reservation
Brief description of your daily activities: – Make quotes and confirmations for the travel consultants
– Sending out reservations
– talking to providers
– Close cases before the clients arrive
– Book flights via Amadeus
– Check cases for mistakes
– Working with internal program Tour Plan
– Product descriptions
– Route segements
Brief description of your company assignment: Usually the company assignment is a destination analysis, but I decided to make a create a product that connects the 4 countries that Protours works with: Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: I always worked with travel consultants, so they gave me much feedback.
My supervisor David Gil Gil (German Market) took great care of me and we had a few talks about my time in the company. Also he motivated me when necessary and gave me a lot of feedback to improve my abilities.

Requirements for students on placement

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

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: by foot

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? Protours arranges and pays for the accommodation
How did you go to work every day? With a colleague

Visa / work permit / vaccinations

Do you need a visa? theoretically no (90 days stay without visa); to be safe a visa is better
Do you need a work permit? no
How did you arrange the necessary documents: go to the embassy
How much time did it take to arrange the necessary documents? 3 weeks
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? Yes. Especially if no Spanish is spoken prior to the stay

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € 900,00
Accommodation (monthly): € 0,00
Local transport (monthly): € 20,00
General costs of living (monthly): € 230,00
Costs of visa: € 84,00
Costs of work permit: € 0
What did the company pay for/to you? The company paid the accommodation (usually a room in a colleague´s house) and an additional amount of 60.000 CLP / 80 Euros

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
I watched some Chilean shows and did some research of the history and culture beforehand.
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: sina-e.sommer@freenet.de

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: DO:
Be sociable and like to talk, be open-minded

DON’T:
be a know-it-all, be arrogant, judge
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: You can visit the surroundings of Puerto Varas and the Llanquihue Lake. The volcano Osorno and the Petrohue waterfalls are wonderfull.
Try to visit as much of Chile as possible from the Desert in the north, Patagonia in the south, and the Easter Island 3500 km off the coast.

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link