EF Educational Tours

Placement organization

Name of organization: EF Educational Tours
Town/city: Rome
Country: Italië
Website: https://www.eftours.com/

Name of student: Fenne Bijl

Specialist area: MT
Placement period: 2016-2017

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Tour operator
Organization’s activities: EF Educational Tours provides educational experiences for High School students from North America and Canada. Their main mission is to provide tours that specialize in the discovering parts of the world though education, and to make sure the students gain cultural knowledge and languages through travel. The regional office in Rome assigns tours to Tour Directors who have the Rome office as their home base. They also provide help, assistance and support for Tour Directors.
Target group of the organization: North American and Canadian High School students
Company culture: Informal
Number of employees: 6
Dress code: casual
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Yes

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working? I’m working on the Educational Tours department in the regional office in Rome.
Brief description of your daily activities: • Sending the necessary information the tour guides need on tour
• Maintain contacts with the operations team;
• Help solve problems that occur during operations;
• Arranging tickets for public transport for the tours;
• Prepare supplies Tour Directors need on tour
• Supporting the HR team with the recruitment and training of new Tour Directors

Brief description of your company assignment: In 2018 the training for the new Tour Directors of the 2018 season will start. For the assignment, I’m doing research and write an advisory plan how to make the training as efficient and interactive as possible for all of the participants.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: In this internship, you get a lot of responsibility and you work on your tasks independently. However, when you have questions everyone in the office is very nice and always willing to help you out.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? Independent, social, able to take initiative
Additional company requirements for this placement? MS Office
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? Spot a Home
How did you go to work every day? Public transport

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? Yes
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? A bit of Italian would come handy, and they really appreciate it when you show interest.

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € 180 euros (incl. luggage)
Accommodation (monthly): € 550 (excl. g/e)
Local transport (monthly): € 35
General costs of living (monthly): € 300, when you live in the center of Rome it can be expensive.
Costs of visa: €
Costs of work permit: €
What did the company pay for/to you? – Return airfare
– 5 euro for meals daily
– Reimbursement of transport costs, In Rome there are a lot of kiosks where you can buy a monthly unlimited public transport card for 35 euro (keep the receipt!)

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
I did not, just keep an open mind.
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: 153160@edu.nhtv.nl

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: To do:
– Keep an open mind regarding the culture and habits.
– When you look for a place, make sure the public transport connects well. the bus and tram never come on time and take longer than google maps says.

Not to do:
– Go through the city on bike, very dangerous.
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: Visit other cities in Italy as Naples, Florence and Venice. If you book train tickets in prior, its not expensive and you’ll be in every city within 3 hours.

Also, take a look at the less popular areas such as Pigneto, very nice to have dinner or a drink!

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link