I have always been passionate about travelling, especially about the part where I get to fly by plane and see the world from above. The sensation of flying and being up there in the clouds is so calming and it gives me an odd feeling about being at home. My love for travelling made me want to become a flight attendant for Emirates, however, I am still too young for this according to their company policies.
Because of this passion, I had always envisioned that my dream internship would be at an airport such as Schiphol. However, during my second year of studies, I decided to remain in my home country because of the COVID-19 pandemic that emerged a year earlier. This limited my internship options and although I did not get the chance to be a communication intern at an airport I am glad I found CrysMar Travel which is a travel agency located in Oradea, Romania.
When I started my internship I was a bit sceptical of whether or not I could positively contribute to this company since some of my roles included promotions of current travel offers on the company’s social media platforms and because of this pandemic travel was quite restricted. Luckily, I quickly discovered that there were a few destinations that were deemed corona safe such as Egypt – the country that was always on the green list during my time at this internship. Turkey, Maldives, Seychelles, Greece and a few other destinations were also very popular but they were not as safe as Egypt in terms of travel restrictions.
In my first few weeks, I spent a lot of time creating photo templates that can be easily used in order to create posts that are different from CrysMar’s competition and make this company stand out. I struggled in the beginning since I have not used Canva Pro (the main program I was using for creating posts) before nor have I designed a post before but after many trials, I can confidently put together a new template in just a few minutes. In addition, at the start of my internship, I realized I might know something about marketing but I know nothing about the specific travel (agencies) in regards to marketing. Here is where the research skills learnt at the UvA proved to be very useful. I read as many articles as I could find on CataloguePlus and combined this knowledge with videos I found online that described what I was interested in in a shorter time span.
Before starting my internship I was rather scared of whether or not I will be able to transcend what I have learnt so far from my Bachelor into a practical setting. Now I do not even know what I was so scared about. I am glad CrysMar Travel accepted my curiosity and enthusiasm, giving me an opportunity to be their social media marketing intern, especially during a pandemic.
I am grateful that this specific bachelor has a mandatory requirement to take an internship during your studies because it opens your horizons, it forces you to actually think about what you will like to do during or after your graduation, it gives you the opportunity to try a real job, learn and obtain the skills you need while you are still in university.