Heritage Expeditions

Placement organization

Name of organization: Heritage Expeditions
Town/city: Christchurch
Country: Nieuw Zeeland
Website: http://heritage-expeditions.com

Name of student: Chris Verstappen

Specialist area: ITMC
Placement period: 2016-2017

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: tour operator
Organization’s activities: Heritage Expeditions is a small ship expedition tour operator. Customers/passengers have the opportunity to go on board one of the two Russian vessels and go to one of the four destinations. Antarctica, the Subantarctic Islands, the Pacific and Russian Far East is the portfolio of Heritage Expeditions. Each destination has a variety of trips to choose from.
Target group of the organization: Adventure travelers, birders
Company culture: The company culture is rather informal. Since it’s a small company which is family owned there isn’t a corporate culture, that was one of the reason I chose Heritage Expeditions as my placement.
Number of employees: 11 employees in office
Dress code: casual
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Yes we made up the contract and all the agreements were met.

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working? Heritage Expeditions doesn’t really have a clear distinction between the different departments. But to answer the question I work mostly for the marketing department which consists of one person (my supervisor). However, during my stay I also helped the operations team with preparations for the ship for the northern season and I spend time on board the ship during an expedition, to also get to know the other side of the company, namely: the expedition side.
Brief description of your daily activities: Daily activities include: Google Adwords and Google Analytics tasks, monitor and analyze META-data, competitor analysis, constantly updating images for website and other mediums, ship operations, writing website content, create landing pages.
Brief description of your company assignment: Objective: To optimize the Wild Earth Travel website and increase the website sessions/visits with the support of Search Engine Marketing.
Wild Earth Travel is a sister company of Heritage Expeditions so I also had to do tasks for them. Wild Earth Travel launched a new website in December now they want to increase their visits one of the factors of increasing online sessions is through the support of Search Engine Marketing. Set phenomena is made up out of different facets so a longer time is necessary to implement all the changes.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: The supervision is in my opinion perfect. They treat me as part of the company and supervision is only done very rarely. They give me the full responsibility instead of controlling all the work that I am doing. The meetings between the supervisor and me are informal but still very productive.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? Flexible, independent, creative, sociable,
Additional company requirements for this placement? MS Office, writing skills, basic knowledge of Google Marketing
English: Advanced
Spanish:
French:
German:
Italian:
Other languages:

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: Airplane

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? Family/relatives
How did you go to work every day? Bicycle

Visa / work permit / vaccinations

Do you need a visa? Yes, I used a working holiday visa
Do you need a work permit? No.
How did you arrange the necessary documents: Via the website of the New Zealand Immigration
How much time did it take to arrange the necessary documents? After the application within one week I had my online visa
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? As long as your English is proficient, you don’t need a language course.

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € 1100
Accommodation (monthly): € 400
Local transport (monthly): € 20
General costs of living (monthly): € 500
Costs of visa: € 120
Costs of work permit: € 0
What did the company pay for/to you? They paid the expedition and additional flights I did in April.

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
I didn’t. My parents already visited New Zealand a couple of times and the culture can be compared to the Dutch culture. One difference is that the people in New Zealand are even more hospitable.
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: verstappenchris@gmail.com

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: Go and apply for this internship, I really enjoyed it and the tasks are an extension on your studies.
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: Work is from Monday to Friday, but for the company it isn’t a problem if you take some days off from time to time. I used the weekends to explore this beautiful country, day trips and longer trips. A car is necessary though to explore the country. You can rent a car from time to time, or buy one upon your arrival in New Zealand. Various Facebook groups offer a wide range of cars.

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link