Coldwell Banker St. Maarten

Placement organization

Name of organization: Coldwell Banker St. Maarten
Town/city: St. Maarten
Country: Geen categorie
Website: http://coldwellbankerstmaarten.com/

Student

Name of student: Priyanka Sadarangani

Specialist area: Tourism Management (EN)
Placement period: 2020-2021

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Real estate company
Organization’s activities: The organization is a real estate company where you buy and sell properties. The agents get in listings themselves and they rent or sell their listings to other people. However, my job was marketing. How to market the company as a whole, how to market the listings, recruitment ideas, handling the social media pages, coming up with innovative ideas and helping to execute them (eg. referral programs) etc.
Target group of the organization: Tourists and local people
Company culture: The culture in the company is a formal culture. it consists of the owner and the co-owner, the office manager and lastly the agents.
Number of employees: 6
Dress code: formal
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Yes

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working?

The marketing department

Brief description of your daily activities: My daily activities can differ each day as new things, ideas and assignments always come up. Some of the daily activities that I will be doing are: answering emails, creating social media content and uploading them to the Facebook and Instagram page, having contact with customers, assisting them with any questions they have, answering the phone, create promotional campaigns for open houses, and for the office itself, create newsletters to send to clients through email (using aweber), sending out press releases to the newspaper every time we have a new listing or in general, attending open houses and assist in planning for the open houses. (how to market for the open house, food and drinks at the open house etc) and even creating an office manual. As mentioned before, other daily tasks will be bought up during my placement.
Brief description of your company assignment: I had four company assignments to complete.
– An analysis of the competition and other key stakeholders. (this means I will have to analyze the competition in regards to how they do things and how they handle their social media and marketing and see how we can be better)
– Create and include a destination analysis (creating a destination analysis means more about St. Maarten and how we can market St. Maarten as a destination. This is important so we can convince tourists to buy a property here),
– Create and implement a customer engagement strategy (how we can involve customers more in the decision-making process)
– Create and map the customer journey. (what the customer goes through when looking and buying for their perfect home- the entire process
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: I had great supervision by the organization. I had a meeting every other week with my company supervisor to see how it is going and to see if we need to discuss anything and she would always ask me if i need any help with any of my assignments or if i have any questions concerning anything.

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? leadership skills, communication skills
Additional company requirements for this placement? Microsoft word, Microsoft excel, Editing photos and videos, putting together videos
English: Advanced
Spanish: Basic
French: Basic
German: Basic
Italian: Basic
Other languages: the language skills is up to you. The more languages you know the better but there is no requirement.

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? Car

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? If you want to take one you can but it is not necessary

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € 650
Accommodation (monthly): € 400
Local transport (monthly): € 40
General costs of living (monthly): € 200
Costs of visa: €
Costs of work permit: €
What did the company pay for/to you? Financial compensation

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
I am from St. Maarten so I already knew a lot about the culture. However, in order to prepare for the culture difference you can do some research on St. Maarten, their food, music etc and you can watch some Youtube videos about the island.
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: priyankasadarangani20@gmail.com

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: Make sure to complete your assignments on time. The company likes to get the work done within the deadline.
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: There are many things to do on St. Maarten. You can visit many beaches, restaurants, the cinema, do beach activities (Jetski, parasailing etc), visit loterie farm, visit rainforest adventurous (zipline), hiking with amazing views and so much more to do here.

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