Weekendesk

Placement organization

Name of organization: Weekendesk
Town/city: Barcelona
Country: Spanje
Website: https://www.weekendesk.nl/

Student

Name of student: Iris van Seeters

Specialist area: Tourism Management (EN)
Placement period: 2018-2019

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Travel agency
Organization’s activities: Weekendesk organizes short getaways and thematic holidays in several countries in Europe. All their packages contain a discount and an activity. They encourage people to go away more often and don’t wait for the holidays.
Target group of the organization: Everyone that likes to go on a weekend getaway
Company culture: Informal
Number of employees: 120
Dress code: casual
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Yes

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working?

Weekendesk is a very young company. I work in the Marketing team of Benelux. The marketing team consists of one marketing manager, 4 marketing coordinators (for Spain, Italy, France and Benelux) and 1 intern per country. For Benelux there are 2 interns, since there are more countries to take care of.

Brief description of your daily activities: I write all the content for the Dutch and Belgian FB page (facebook ads and posts) and the Dutch and Belgian newsletters. Moreover, I need to contact companies and influencers for collaborations and need to check if the packages for a campaign contain all the requirements and if the price is competitive compared to booking.com. When these offers are okay, I can link them to a category. Furthermore, sometimes I need to write texts for press operations and for articles on the discovery page of the website. Every monday I need to make a social media report to give insight in how the FB page is performing and I need to accept or decline new affiliates. I have a lot of contact with the Photo team, that edit all pictures for social media, and with the Supply team about packages that need to be pushed.
Brief description of your company assignment: I am doing a research on how the conversion rate can be increased on the NL discovery webpage of Weekendesk. This webpage just launched and is not yet available on desktop (just mobile website).
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: The marketing team is very welcoming and my supervisor is very nice to work with. I can always ask her anything and the atmosphere is always really good. Every week, I have a 1 to 1 meeting with my supervisor where we look at the numbers of the FB page, newsletters and more. She gives me tips how I can improve and what could work well for the FB page or other content. Furthermore, we discuss the tasks that I need to do that week.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? Independent, teamplayer, sociable, flexible
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? Myself and and another student found an accommodation via Airbnb
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, just a social security number (the company will tell you more about it)
How did you arrange the necessary documents: Via Weekendesk
How much time did it take to arrange the necessary documents? 1 hour
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? No, but the marketing coordinators speak Spanish to each other, so it is nice if you understand a bit of Spanish

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € 170
Accommodation (monthly): € 640
Local transport (monthly): € 40
General costs of living (monthly): € 450
Costs of visa:  –
Costs of work permit: –
What did the company pay for/to you? €500

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
I didn’t. I have been to Spain multiple times.
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: 163092@buas.nl

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: Start to search for an accommodation on time! It is hard to find a good one that meets all the requirements and be critical.
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: There is always things to do in Barcelona and surroundings. Definitely visit Montserrat. Weekendesk is a young company with a lot of interns. Everyone is super welcoming and we are doing a lot together outside of work.

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link