Cultural Immersion

Placement organization

Name of organization: Cultural Immersion
Town/city: Cusco
Country: Peru
Website: http://www.culturalimmersion.org/

Name of student: Sarah Wennekes

Specialist area: MT
Placement period: 2017-2018

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Travel Agency
Organization’s activities: Cultural Immersion if offering various luxury trips to destinations in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands. All these trips are fully customizable and have private services.
Target group of the organization: Higher segment
Company culture: The manager is the founder of Cultural Immersion. Below him are working people in the Sales Department, Operations Department, and the Reservations Department.
The company culture is informal and relaxed. Because the ages of the employees vary between 25 and 40, the dynamic in the office is good.
Number of employees: 7
Dress code: casual
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Not all of them

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working?

I was working at the Sales Department of Cultural Immersion.

Brief description of your daily activities: My daily activities were mostly creating itineraries for customers and contact with the clients. Normally we would receive a request from a customer and I would create an itinerary. After sending the first itinerary the customers mostly wanted to change things. From then on I would be in contact with this customer until the itinerary met his/her wishes. Besides this, I have also been creating new general itineraries for the website, including content for the website.
Brief description of your company assignment: The customers of Cultural Immersion are mostly from the United States. My manager would like to have more customers from Europe as well and wanted to see if there are other travel agencies in Europe with the same values, who might be interested in working together with Cultural Immersion.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: I did not really get a lot of supervision during my internship by my manager. This was because he was busy with some new projects in Maras, close to Cusco, so he was traveling there and back to Cusco a lot. When I had any questions he was always able to answer them but I would have liked it to have more meetings during my internship. My colleagues at work were training me and helping me at the beginning of my internship so I got more insight into the company and the systems we are using.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? Flexible, patience, communications skills, sociable
Additional company requirements for this placement? Writing skills, MS Office, (Excel)
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? Facebook: Expats living in Cusco – Expats support
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? Yes
How long in advance? 2/3 months

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? Yes

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € 680
Accommodation (monthly): € 155
Local transport (monthly): € 10
General costs of living (monthly): € 200 (depending on trips)
Costs of visa: € –
Costs of work permit: € –
What did the company pay for/to you? The company paid 1000,- soles each month, this is 260,- euros.
Also at the end of my internship, I got my trip to Puerto Maldonado (Jungle in Peru) for free.

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
I did not really prepare that much.
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: swennekes@outlook.com

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: Cusco is 3400 meters above sea level and that means that you can get altitude sickness. It's recommended to rest the first days of your stay in Cusco so make sure you will be in Cusco a couple of days before your internship starts. There are pills you can take that help you as well.
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: Around Cusco, there are lots of activities you can do. In the Sacred Valley, there are villages you can visit like Pisaq, Ollantaytambo and, Urubamba. Also, the Salt Terraces of Maras and the Circular Terraces of Moray are nearby and nice to visit. Besides this, there is also Montaña de Siete Colores (Rainbow Mountain) which is a colorful mountain you will reach after a hike.
Finally of course Machu Picchu, the wonder of the world. It is easy to get there by train or do the Inka Trail.

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link