NewLife Villas

Placement organization

Name of organization: NewLife Villas
Town/city: Bali
Country: Indonesië
Website: http://www.newlifevillas.com

Name of student: Sanne Boudewijn

Specialist area: ITTI
Placement period: 2015-2016

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Villa management
Organization’s activities: NewLife Villas is a company that is specialized in managing and marketing private villas and villa complexes on Bali and Lombok. As the organization has years of experience in the travel industry, NewLife Villas is a successful company that presents villas to worldwide customers. This process is leaded by an experiences and professional team that guarantee the best quality. One of the goals of NewLife Villas is to guarantee a full serviced villa, with dedicated staff that makes your stay as enjoyable as possible. Furthermore, the website is used to find a suitable villa for every customers. However, as NewLife Villas is a company that is dedicated with personal contact, the villa rental team can assist in finding the perfect vacation villa in Bali and Lombok. The trend of online booking is also well known by NewLife Villas. Therefore, NewLife Villas only focuses on online travel agents, where the villas are presented and where the customers can book their villas online. Moreover, NewLife Villas offers a carefree management solution for the villa owners in which the operations and marketing aspects are taken over of the villas. This is done with full transparency and the aim of NewLife Villas is to maximize the income for the owners
Target group of the organization: No specific target group
Company culture: The team of NewLife Villas is a mixed Indonesian/Western team and has more than 30 years experience in the travel industry. Of these 30 years, there is 15 years experience in Bali. One of the goals of the management is to continuously keep the company up to date; this is done by listening and working together with younger generations.NewLife Villas is company that is managed with a ‘western’ way of thinking and working; therefore NewLife Villas is a well-structured and straightforward organization with an open administration. Moreover, one of the most important values for NewLife Villas is to communicate clearly and give full inside in the income and costs towards the villa owners.
Number of employees: 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? As the company is relatively small, I worked in all the departments as everyone of the company gave me some insight into their job. However, I mostly did the reservations and managed the new Airbnb profile.
Brief description of your daily activities: Handling all the requests, reservations, reviews and management on Airbnb including changing prices and process the booking within the systems.

Reading the Airbnb community page, as everyone with an Airbnb profile can communicate with each other and give each other tips.

Reading the vacation rental marketing blog by Matt Landau. This is a blog where Matt posts many useful tips, trends and everything else.

Handling all the reservations on Airbnb, Agoda, Booking.com, Tripadvisor, Expedia, other websites. Every booking is processed differently.

Handling the questions asked by customers on Booking.com, Agoda, Expedia, TripAdvisor, Airbnb and other websites.
Brief description of your company assignment: Doing a research about the trends of online booking behavior of tourists and propose a strategy that will increase the revenue. The main purpose of the company assignment is to look at the possibilities to increase the revenue of NewLife Villas by using another online travel agency. To find out which online travel agency will fit this target there are several aspects that should be taken into account. The first one is the trends of online booking behavior of tourists nowadays, the second one are the travel trends in general and the third one is to find out which online travel agencies are the biggest ones nowadays.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: As the company gives you a lot of freedom and as they work online, most of the work was done at home. However, my supervisor could and did check everything that I did. He gave me assignments every day to work on and we mostly met three days in the week. Furthermore, I also tried to go to the office one day a week to meet the others from the company. Moreover, we also visited many villas with everyone in the company and we tried to have regular meetings with everyone in the company.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? Independent, sociable, flexible, stress-proof, representable, quick-learner, ambitious and creative.
Additional company requirements for this placement? Good knowledge about laptops (preferable Apple Macbook)
English: Advanced
Spanish:
French:
German:
Italian:
Other languages:

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: Scooter

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? I arranged my accommodation by myself, as I contact someone who I found on Airbnb via Facebook.
How did you go to work every day? I always used Go-Jek or my supervisor picked me up at my place.

Visa / work permit / vaccinations

Do you need a visa? Yes, a social cultural visa
Do you need a work permit? No
How did you arrange the necessary documents: The company will send you all the necessary documents, after that you need to go to the embassy in Den Haag,
How much time did it take to arrange the necessary documents? No
Did you need certain vaccinations? Yes
How long in advance? Not much, I only needed to print some things and copy my passport.

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): € 850
Accommodation (monthly): € 300
Local transport (monthly): € 10
General costs of living (monthly): € 150/200
Costs of visa: € 50
Costs of work permit: € –
What did the company pay for/to you? They paid all the meals when I worked at the office or when I worked together with them. Furthermore, they paid all the visa extensions.

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
Before you start your placement, you already need to do a cultural analysis. This is the only way how I prepared myself.
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: 130483@edu.nhtv.nl

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: I would advice to just go to Bali with an open-mind. You will experience many different things. In my opinion, I have learned much from the Balinese/Indonesian culture and also from my placement itself.
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: The placement took place in Canggu. This is a very popular destination, however it is still upcoming, which means that you can still experience the ‘real’ Bali. There are many things to do, such as surfing, partying, shopping, visiting temples etc.

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link