EF Educational Tours

Placement organization

Name of organization: EF Educational Tours
Town/city: Madrid
Country: Spanje
Website: https://www.eftours.com

Student

Name of student: Matthijs Schalekamp

Specialist area: Associate degree
Placement period: 2019-2020

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Educational tours
Organization’s activities: The Tours department of EF in Madrid is organizing tours abroad for students from the United States and Canada.
Target group of the organization: Students from America and Canada
Company culture: The company culture is informal. The colleagues are very friendly and are always willing to help you with your daily tasks and work.
Number of employees: 4
Dress code: casual
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Yes

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working?

I was working at the regional office in Madrid for the Tour Director Department.

Brief description of your daily activities:
– Point of contact for the tour directors.
– Answering the phone.
– Using Atlast to set up new contracts and allocate new tours.
– Using AssetPanda to send out TD-Links (tablets for the tour directors)
– Arrange metro and train tickets.
– General administrative work in office.
– Phone screen possible new candidates to become a tour director, select new candidates during selection days and train new candidates during a 3 – day training.

Brief description of your company assignment: Set up a social media action plan to become more connected with our tour directors.

Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: I had three Colleagues in the office. the team is very small and therefore close to each other. everyone is very nice and is always open to you to help where needed.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? Independent, teamplayer, flexible, sociable.
Additional company requirements for this placement? MS office, good English in both word and writing.
English: Advanced
Spanish: Basic

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: Airplane

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? Myself. I’ve been using the company: Spothome
How did you go to work every day? Metro

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, not necessarily. It may be useful to take a basic Spanish course but this is not necessary.

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € The company will reimburse your flight tickets.
Accommodation (monthly): € 460
Local transport (monthly): € They will pay it for you.
General costs of living (monthly): € 600
Costs of visa: €
Costs of work permit: €
What did the company pay for/to you? – Your airline tickets (both ways)
– Monthly metro card
– 5 Euro daily meal allowance

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
Because I have been in Spain many times, I have not prepared myself in a specific way for the culture of this country.
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: 182324@buas.nl

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: From Madrid you have many exit roads to other beautiful cities, a tip is to make use of them. Furthermore, the nightlife is great fun in the city. Madrid also has a lot to offer culturally and there is always something to do in this city.
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: as I just described, there’s plenty to do. Explore the city and all the other possibilities there are!

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