MikeBikes

Placement organization

Name of organization: MikeBikes
Town/city: Kuala Lumpur
Country: Maleisië
Website: https://www.mikebikes.my/nl/

Student

Name of student: Desie de Hoon

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

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Touroperator
Organization’s activities: MikeBikes is a company that offers guided cycle tours in the inner city of Kuala Lumpur for tourists.
Target group of the organization: Dutch Tourists
Company culture: The company consist of only 3 staff members of which’s there are 2 managers and 1 women who is doing the financial administration. Furthermore, there are working 16 freelance tour guides with MikeBikes. there is not a real hierarchy, everybody is almost the same.
Number of employees: 19 freelance tour guides and 3 employees
Dress code: uniform
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Yes

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working?

marketing

Brief description of your daily activities: Active social media promotion/Optimalisation: This means writing content and photos that will be posted on the social media of MikeBikes, for example their Facebook, Instagram etc. Furthermore, see what else can be implemented on their social media, for example making use of persuasion techniques, keep in contact with recently visited customers via social media, reply to comments, reviews and/ or complaints.
Active contribution to improve client numbers online: by optimizing the website, social media, and advertising of the company I am going to try to increase the number of visitors of those online platforms. Doing research about how MikeBikes would be able to increase these number of visitors and implement it. Doing market research in order to gain information about trends and competitors of the industry. They want more visitors to come via Social media so I have to try to gain more visitors to the website via social media platforms. Helping to set up online marketing campaigns (google ads)
Optimalisation of the website in English and Dutch, online marketing communication research: making the websites pages optimized for SEO, doing keyword analysis and implementing keywords on the website. post new items on the website, Research about what improvements can be implemented on the website, for example a Realtime marketing campaign to increase the user experience. Adjust bottlenecks of the website, see what can be improved.
Keeping track of the google analytics and how to optimize the website according to the results.
Normal Backoffice work: replying to emails, answering calls, maintaining financial records and administration, make bookings, keep in contact with recent guests.
Scheduling tourists guides/tours: scheduling the tours that will take place that week, scheduling the guides for the tours.
Normal front office work: welcoming the tourists for the tour on that day and participate in the tour as a guides couple of times during my internship.
Brief description of your company assignment: my company assignment was to write a marketing plan
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: my organisations supervisor was a really friendly man, who helped me with everything and i could ask him everything which was really nice for me when moving to a big new city in a far away country. he also gave me a lot of good feedback about myself and how i worked within the company that i have learned from.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? independent, very flexible and a hard working social person.
Additional company requirements for this placement? No
English: Advanced
Other languages: Dutch – advanced

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: Airplane

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? myself
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? yes
How did you arrange the necessary documents: an agency arranged it for me, The MDBC.
How much time did it take to arrange the necessary documents? 2 weeks
Did you need certain vaccinations? Yes
How long in advance? 1/0,5 year

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

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € 800
Accommodation (monthly): € 250
Local transport (monthly): € 2
General costs of living (monthly): € 800
Costs of visa: € 0
Costs of work permit: € 0
What did the company pay for/to you? They paid me a monthly financial compensation of €200 and covered my transportation costs of €2 a day.

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
I read about Malaysia, did some google searching bot not much really because i already went to Asia a couple of times and also had visited Malaysia before so i already new the culture and their different way of living.
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: desie123@hotmail.com

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do:
to do:
– search about the country you are doing your placement in, find out how they live their everyday life, their culture etc.
– respect the culture, as Malaysia is an Islamic country you have to respect their ways of living.
not to do:
be late to work, act unprofessional, take your work not serious.

Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: In Kuala Lumpur there is soooo much to do. it is really a big city with a lot of beautiful touristic sports to see and visit. There are a lot of shopping centres there is a national zoo, gardens, lakes, theme-parks etc. so you will never find yourself bored in this city.

Media