ATD Spain

Placement organization

Name of organization: ATD Spain
Town/city: Sevilla
Country: Spanje
Website: https://atdspain.com/en

Student

Name of student: Maxime Wennekers

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

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Bike Tour company
Organization’s activities: Providing a range of bike tours in and around Sevilla. All bike tours can be arranged according to the wishes of the clients, and can be requested as private tours.
Backoffice takes care of everything contact- and media related, such as phone calls, emails, social media, etc.
Target group of the organization: Middle-aged Dutch people with an above-average income
Company culture: ATD Spain has an informal structure and a relatively loud atmosphere. You need to be able to work with a lot of noise and activities happening around you. Aside from that, the intern must be flexible and a bit of a jack-of-all-trades; I had to take care of all social media the company uses and do bike tours in the city as well. You come into contact with a lot of clients, so you have to be a bit of a smooth talker and be able to handle grumpy clients from time to time.
You wear a company t-shirt and/or jacket to distinguish yourself from the clients. Both people that work in the office and most of the tour guides wear the uniform. The bright colours also work as a beacon of recognition for the clients during the bike tour.
Number of employees: 5
Dress code: uniform
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Yes

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working?

Back-office
Tour Guide

Brief description of your daily activities:
– Making content for the social media that the company is active on (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and the company website). This includes taking pictures, editing pictures, being up-to-date on events happening in and around the city, video-editing, writing blogs in both Dutch and English
– Bike Tours (2 per week). As I was supposed to be a back-office intern, my time on the bike was limited to 2 tours per week. In the first two weeks, you have to learn the tour by heart and look up interesting historical facts about the city and its history.
– Bike cleaning. This is a very uninteresting task, but was sometimes necessary.
Brief description of your company assignment: Using Google Analytics, I had to conduct a research to see whether or not it would be profitable to start a Google Advert campaign in order to attract more clients. This was very difficult, as I had to analyse data from traffic to the company’s own website, which is not very well-known. Most customers book through touroperators that the company works together with, so hardly anybody realises the company has its own website.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: Rosalie is the supervisor, but she does not have that much knowledge of social media and has no time to join you on your bike tours. Nevertheless, if you have a question, she does try to help you from time to time to the best of her abilities.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? independent, sociable, flexible, stress-proof, high level of English, preferably a moderate level of another language besides Dutch and English, creative
Additional company requirements for this placement? MS Office, Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro or another video-editing program
English: Advanced
Spanish: Intermediate
French: Basic
German: Basic
Italian:
Other languages: DUTCH (90% of the clients is Dutch so mother tongue-level is preferred)

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: airplane

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? company gave me a number to contact (a Dutch house-owner)
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? No

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € 210
Accommodation (monthly): € 450
Local transport (monthly): € 0
General costs of living (monthly): € 300
Costs of visa: €
Costs of work permit: €
What did the company pay for/to you? Financial Compensation at the end of the internship (amount depends on satisfaction of work delivered)

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
I have been going to Spain on holiday several times a year thanks to my parents, so the culture is like a second home to me. But I don’t think it is that different or hard to adjust. Keep in mind you have to work until around 20.30 every day, so dinner might be later than you are used to.
Did the culture of the country influence your performance during the placement in any way? The workplace was a lot louder than I expected, and since you can’t just zone out all the noise, you will have to get used to it.

Future students on placement

Future students are free to contact me for further information: Yes
My e-mail address: maximewennekers@hotmail.com

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: Go on a daytrip to Caminito del Rey; you will not regret it because the views are amazing and you can take super cool pictures!
Do go out to eat lunch or dinner from time to time. Don’t try to save money on those things because it’s not that expensive to begin with. Sometimes it’s nice not to have to cook dinner after a long day of work.
Do go for a bike ride along the river on a weekend day! The breeze feels nice and there’s plenty of places to take nice pictures. Grab a friend and go!

Don’t have take-out too often; that will turn out very expensive in the end. There’s plenty of places close to home, so take off those pyjama’s and enjoy the city!
Don’t eat those ready-made meals from the supermarket too often… they’re not that tasty and they’re also quite unhealthy. I have seen people in my house that were too lazy to cook and it does not do your health any good.
Ocean Seville is one of the only public pools in the city, but it’s very far from the center and it costs 25 euros. It’s just a pool, it’s not that big, and you’re not allowed to bring your own food and drinks (and the bar is super expensive). It was NOT worth it in my honest opinion.
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: Caminito del Rey and Cádiz (the sea) are relatively close, but there’s plenty to do in the city!
If you like historical buildings and visiting churches on holiday, Seville is the city for you! There’s also a beautiful Fine Arts Museum that is very quiet (not a lot of people know it’s there so you won’t see many people).
Seville also has an acquarium for a nice relaxing activity.
There’s loads of nice cafes in the city where you can enjoy coffee or tea with some snacks or lunch. Most of the time there will be an English menu.

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