Corinthia Hotel St. George’s Bay

Placement organization

Name of organization: Corinthia Hotel St. George’s Bay
Town/city: St. Julians
Country: Malta
Website: https://www.corinthia.com/en/hotels/malta-stgeorgesbay

Student

Name of student: Dorien Nijhuis

Specialist area: ITMC
Placement period: 2017-2018

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: 5-star Hotel
Organization’s activities: Corinthia St George’s Bay is a luxurious 5 star hotel, which targets luxury guests both leisure and business on a national and international scale.
Target group of the organization: upper market, leisure & business- MICE
Company culture: The company culture is informal. Colleagues do communicate with each other in an informal way. This helps to create a nice working atmosphere. However, when matters are urgent or the guests are involved, the communication becomes formal.
As an intern you are part of the team and get some responsibility,the work pressure is (sometimes) very high on employees, but not on interns. The workload differs per department.
Number of employees: 150-200
Dress code: formal
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Yes

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working?

Group Operations Department

Brief description of your daily activities: As an intern in the Group Operations Department you will learn several tasks. You have to update the forecast and do preparations for upcoming Groups / Events, these preparations include making signage’s, menu cards, buffet tags etc. Furthermore, you help your colleagues with preparing the weekly events meeting, and do many administrative tasks for example, put in new reservations.

However, you do not get enough tasks to fill your whole day. I worked on my school assignments during my spare time.
Brief description of your company assignment: For my company assignment I did a research into the trends and developments of business travelers and the events industry of Malta. With this research I provided recommendations for the Corinthia hotel in order to attract more business travelers.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: Good. My supervisor was very kind to me and always willing to answer my questions. When my supervisor was busy I could go to my 2 other colleagues for questions or help.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? Independent, Flexible, Representable
Additional company requirements for this placement? MS office, Excel
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? Estage Agent
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? 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? If you struggle with English, yes

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € 200
Accommodation (monthly): € 460
Local transport (monthly): € 30
General costs of living (monthly): € 400
Costs of visa: € –
Costs of work permit: € –
What did the company pay for/to you? Daily lunch at the staff canteen

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
I prepared myself for the countries culture by reading about Malta online. Furthermore, I spoke to a few people visited Malta already.
Did the culture of the country influence your performance during the placement in any way? Yes

Future students on placement

Future students are free to contact me for further information: Yes
My e-mail address: 152521@edu.nhtv.nl

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: Personally I would not recommend going to Malta for your internship. The island is very touristic and lots of things are not well organized (for example public transport is terrible).
Going towards the summer months it gets very very busy with lots of tourists.

I would recommend to find an apartment fast if you want to go. Make sure your apartment is walking distance since the buses are never on time or to full.
The best area would be St. Julians or Sliema (also the busiest areas). Be careful since lots of apartments are rented out illegal and do not offer a good lease agreement. Make sure it is clear what is offered and what you can expect for the apartment.
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: Malta offers some beautiful sightseeing attractions. I would recommend to go by bus (take your time) or taxi to visit Blue Grotto, Blue Lagoon (at Comino), Mdina, Paceville, Valletta the Capital or Gozo. However, keep in mind during summer season its very busy with tourists, I would recommend visiting these sights during winter months.

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link