Green Bikes Barcelona

Placement organization

Name of organization: Green Bikes Barcelona
Town/city: Barcelona
Country: Spanje
Website: http://www.greenbikesbarcelona.com

Student

Name of student: Rowan Oosthoek

Specialist area: MTT
Placement period: 2012-2013

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Bike rental and tour shop
Organization’s activities: Rent bikes to customers and organize tours
Target group of the organization: Couples, families, tour companies
Company culture: Everyone is equal in this company, I am just an employee and no one treat me like an intern.
Number of employees: 8
Dress code: casual
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Yes

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working? They don’t have departments
Brief description of your daily activities: Call guides, arrange tours, give tours, helping customers who want to rent a bike, improve facebook page, distribution of marketing materials, finances.
Brief description of your company assignment: Develop a new marketing strategy
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: My boss was great, if I needed help, he helped me but I had a lot of responsibility and I could take a lot of initiative

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? Social, stress proof, responsible, teamplayer, take initiative
Additional company requirements for this placement? Word, excel
English: Advanced
Spanish: Advanced
French:
German:
Italian:
Other languages:

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: Airplane

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? www.loquo.com
How did you go to work every day? walk

Visa / work permit / vaccinations

Do you need a visa? No
Do you need a work permit? No
How did you arrange the necessary documents: I don´t have any documents, before I left, I arranged my house, my ov, my studiefinanciering and my insurance. And you have to do this on time because duo is very slow with processing everything,
How much time did it take to arrange the necessary documents?
Did you need certain vaccinations? No

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? Yes, I followed a course when I was there

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € 300,00
Accommodation (monthly): € 470,00
Local transport (monthly): € 0,00
General costs of living (monthly): € 700,00
How long in advance did you apply for visa
Costs of visa: €
Costs of work permit: €
What did the company pay for/to you? First nothing. Last two months EUR 400,00. I did get a bike and they paid for my Spanish course which was EUR 90,00 per month. Additionally, if I gave tours I got EUR 40,00 per tour.

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
I did not
Did the culture of the country influence your performance during the placement in any way? No, life is different but that doesn´t mean you work different; it is a tourist company, so it is always crowded so you have to work hard.

Future students on placement

Future students are free to contact me for further information: Yes
My e-mail address: 101973@edu.nhtv.nl

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: Take initiative, work hard, be stress proof and have experience in working with customers. And just have fun, Barcelona is great
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: Barcelona is great, I lived and worked in the middle of the city centre, there are bars, restaurants,shops, the parc and the subway is very easy here and cheap so you can go everywhere.

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link