Asia Experience Tours

Placement organization

Name of organization: Asia Experience Tours
Town/city: Kuala Lumpur
Country: Maleisië
Website: http://www.asia-experience.com

Student

Name of student: Evelien Lemmens

Specialist area: ITTI
Placement period: 2012-2013

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: DMC
Organization’s activities: Selling/Arranging holiday packages, day tours, incentive trips, transfers and hotel bookings
Target group of the organization: Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle East and Russian
Company culture: In every department there is a head of the department, which is also your supervisor when you are in that department. You will refer to that supervisor. The head of the departments can refer to the head of the company (2 people) and they can refer to the CEO when necessary.
Number of employees: approx. 100
Dress code: formal, casual on fridays
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Yes

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working? Accounts, Business development, Credit control, Customer service, HR, IT deparment, MICE, Project team, Transport, Product & Marketing, Reservation, Sales and Wholesales’.
I worked in Customer service, Mice, Sales
Brief description of your daily activities: In customer service your workday will consist of sending reminders for transfers and tours to hotels/clients. You will also handle phone calls which come in on the general line. As I’m Dutch I also handled the Dutch 24hours hotline. In the customer service department, you have much time to work on your assignments. In the MICE department you will help set up conferences, help to send quotations to restaurants and follow up. You will also help to organize incoming quotations. You will be in the Sales department for only two weeks, the main objective is to learn how the sales department set up contracts with overseas agents.
Brief description of your company assignment: I had to do a comparative study on tourism destination competitiveness with The Netherlands as market study and Malaysia as destination study. In short, I needed to analyse the Dutch outbound travel market. I needed to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of Malaysia as a destination. At the end the assignment focused on the company, wherefore I needed to give recommendations about tours which would be interesting for Dutch tourists. Coming up with new tours and also analyse the already existing tours.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: I have multiple supervisors as I work in different departments. The supervisors will advise you when necessary, but you are also able to ask other people in the department.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? Independent, take initiative, social, flexible and a team player
Additional company requirements for this placement? General computer knowledge. Word and Excel.
English: Advanced
Spanish:
French:
German:
Italian:
Other languages: German and French would be useful, but not necessary

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: Airplane

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? The company arranged that I could stay with a colleague
How did you go to work every day? By bus and train (takes about 45min)

Visa / work permit / vaccinations

Do you need a visa? Officially yes, the company will send you in April to Singapore or Bangkok to extend your tourist visa.
Do you need a work permit? Officially yes, but the company will arrange a weekend abroad for you to extend your visa.
How did you arrange the necessary documents:
How much time did it take to arrange the necessary documents?
Did you need certain vaccinations? Yes

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? n/a

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € 1000,00
Accommodation (monthly): € 0,00
Local transport (monthly): € 40,00
General costs of living (monthly): € 300,00 (cheaper is definitely possible)
Costs of visa: €
Costs of work permit: €
What did the company pay for/to you? 350 ringgets accommodation, 500 ringgets allowence, 150 ringgets for the Dutch 24hour hotline (mobile phone).
Total: 1000 RM = 250 Euro

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
Some reading
Did the culture of the country influence your performance during the placement in any way? No the culture did not influence me at work. There are culture differences of course. I noticed only small cultural differences, however it did not bother me at work.

Future students on placement

Future students are free to contact me for further information: Yes
My e-mail address: 101051@edu.nhtv.nl

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: Kuala Lumpur has a lot to offer. It is a major city with clubs, cinema’s, many shopping malls and food everywhere. Furthermore, theme parks and water parks are close to Kuala Lumpur as well.
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: Make trips to other parts of Malaysia and neighbour countries. Air asia is a low cost airline and you can fly to a lot of interesting destinations relatively cheap.

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link