In the last few months we’ve had a lot going on. In Product, we’ve been putting together and signing off our new brochures for 2012 and early 2013. We’ve also started work on planning the summer 2013 season and the 5 year strategy. Late trading finished selling for summer 2011 and have now moved onto Winter 2011. Early Trading are currently busy putting together information for the turn of year papers, special offers that go out to the national newspapers for January. And finally the placements in Cruise have been looking at new routes and areas for the ships to sail to for summer 2013 and selling the final seats left on the cruise ships for this year.

A few of use have been very lucky and have already gone on resort trips including a cruise around the Canaries, a trip to Majorca and a trip to Mexico. This has been really useful as it has enabled us to see the hotels and areas that we are looking after and really make the most of the product and holidays that we are selling. It has also got to the time of the year that we have all started to think about using the great holiday discounts that we get whilst we are here!

As well as our day to day jobs we have been helping recruit the new placements for next year’s intake. We have all visited a university placement fair somewhere around the country to talk to potential students about the scheme. It’s been a great opportunity to shout about how great our scheme is. We have met some really strong candidates at these fairs and have already carried out one assessment centre.

In November the guys in cruise organised a cake sale, quiz and raffle in the aid of raising money for Children in Need. The main prize was a weekend cruise to Amsterdam. A lot of organising went into this and the whole business got involved – the cakes in particular went down well! They raised a total of £1400, which was a fantastic effort!

We’ve got lots of things to look forward to in December. This includes the Commercial Christmas party, the placement Christmas party and the hanger visits to see our Thomson Airways aircraft undergoing maintenance. It’s going to be a busy month in the office as we all get ready for our busiest time of year in January. We would like to wish you all a Happy Christmas and look forward to welcoming some of you at the next assessment centre.

“Firstly we would like to say hi to all of our bloggers on the Rate My Placement Website! We’ll start firstly by introducing ourselves – we’re Amy and Ben, two of the nine new placements at TUI Travel this year. We’re both in the third year of our courses at Loughborough University. Amy is studying Retail, Marketing & Management, and Ben is studying Transport & Business Management.

The placements at TUI are based at the Head Office in Luton, are are in the Product, Trading, and Cruise departments, which all sit under the Commercial Division. Katie and Max work in Late Trading, Becky and Saoirse are in Early Trading, Holly trades Accommodation Only, Joel and Antoni are in Cruise whilst we’re both working in Product.

Over the next twelve months, Ben has been placed in the Short Haul team in product, looking after the resorts of Mainland Spain & Portugal, and Amy has been placed in the Long Haul team, working on the resorts of Aruba, Mexico, Cuba & Jamaica. We’d like to give you some information about Product which is central to the whole of the Commercial Division. Our job involves making key strategic decisions – starting with deciding on which hotels we will feature for each of our resorts, what product we’ll be selling, pricing them to ensure a strong profit, then designing and placing them into our brochures. Once this is all finalised and signed off, it gets handed over to our Trading teams to sell and yield manage throughout the season. We also have the day-to-day role of answering queries from anyone across the whole business about our resorts, as well as trying to ensure that they are selling well throughout the year, by analysing sales reports and meeting with the Trading team.

We’ll now give you a brief overview of Trading. They’re responsible for analysing sales and reacting with pricing decisions, depending on many things such as the current rate of sale or the state of economies around the world. For example, if they see that a hotel is not selling well in a resort, they will adjust the price in an attempt to try to increase demand to that hotel and hopefully the resort, too.

Lastly, but not least, the Cruise team have their own Product and Trading teams, similar to the above, but dealing with cruise holidays and the ships which fall under the Thomson & Island Cruises brands.

We’ll now give you a quick outline of our induction period. Lasting two weeks, we had an in-depth overview of TUI, along with some great activities to break the presentations up. Examples of which included a cocktail party activity (unfortunately, no alcohol was involved) which helped us to develop our understanding of the different TUI brands and products, a visit to the Thomson Airways hangar to see the aircraft undergoing maintenance, as well as a mystery shopping activity in our own retail stores to check up on customer service. We were made to feel really welcome by everyone for these first couple of weeks – we even went out for lunch in our teams on the first day!

This week at TUI in the Commercial Division has been People Week. Throughout the week, there have been many activities going on, including presentations taking place, similar to in our induction. On Wednesday night we also had a quiz – unfortunately we didn’t win but we had loads of fun and so many people got involved and had a laugh. The week has been ‘back to school’ themed, so today everyone came in dressed in uniform! (We both won the awards for being the best dressed in our department – great first impressions done for us!). We’ve also got some more exciting social events lined up for us, including team nights out, the TUI Sports Day weekend in Shropshire and, of course, not long now until the Christmas parties start!

That’s it for a few weeks from us, we’ll be updating you again soon. Don’t forget to check out our Facebook group as we’re now recruiting for next years intake!”

Join Tui’s Facebook group for more information, just click the button here. You can also find out more from Ben and Amy at TUI Travel, plus visit the Industry Zones on RateMyPlacement for more personal accounts from students on internships and placements!

Feel free to add your thoughts below! Would you like a placement at TUI Travel?

”Our latest blog said that we had another busy few months ahead and we’ve stayed true to our word – but as we always say, with hard work comes hard play!

The late trading team have just entered their busiest period and are full swing ahead with last minute pricing to ensure that all packages are sold, whilst product are busy preparing for the 2nd Edition launch of Summer 2012 brochures. The Cruise team have been busy managing changes to the Winter 2011 season and have also been preparing for the 2nd edition brochure launch in August.

We have welcomed two of the new placements students in the last month. Both Katie and Max have started their training in the Late Trading Team – replacing Dec and Jac who are taking up other positions in the company now that the contracted placement year has come to an end. We’ve had a few nights out to say hello and goodbye to the students, including a night in St Albans and a lucky night (for some) in Luton’s Casino!

The month of June also saw Tui’s “Big Event” summer party at Whipsnade Zoo. It was a fantastic evening enjoyed by all. Some entertainment of the event included an adult bouncy castle, a bucking bronco, a free bar, a tasty barbeque and a live band with a superb performance from our very own Managing Director Johan!!

Although we are entering the last few weeks of our placement, we are still spending time in other departments and developing our knowledge. Majority of the students have spent time with the After Travel department and have even had experience of listening in to live calls from customers – which can vary from querying lost property to making important complaints with the need of compensation. We all learnt how important customer service is and how important it is to please dissatisfied customers in order for repeat business.

With only 5 weeks left until our placement comes to and end, we’ve still got many things to keep us busy alongside our day to day jobs. We’ll be helping with the induction of the new placement students, making the most of spending time in other departments and last but not least making sure we do nothing embarrassing that could be used for our leaving speeches!!

Why not join Tui’s Facebook group for more information, just click the button here. You can also find out more from Anna and Karla at TUI Travel, as well as our other Guest Bloggers over the coming year!

Feel free to add your thoughts below! Would you like a placement at TUI Travel?

The summer 2012 brochures are now stacked neatly on the shelves, the placement students are recruited and are waiting to start in August and we’ve all made the most of the travel benefits we have here at TUI… it’s been a great few months!

After months of hard work from the product team, the summer 2012 season went on sale on the 5th May. Now the trading team are in full swing of pushing early bookings so if you want to get away, get in there quick! There has been more hype around this launch as the brand First Choice has moved to the “Home of All Inclusive”- now only selling All Inclusive package holidays from summer 2012 onwards. This brand differentiation is a big move for TUI and is a first in the Travel Industry. So to celebrate TUI hosted a beach-themed day in head office. Going with the All Inclusive theme, the canteen was transformed into a free bar with a live guitarist and the cocktails and beer went down nicely. Besides all the cocktails, we had stalls from the Orlando, Tunisian and Porto Santo tourist boards as well as a cruise stand and numerous product stands. All the staff were dressed in summer and beach themed clothes, one of the placement students even went as far as coming into the office in a wetsuit bringing along a canoe- our Managing Director was very impressed with the effort!

Keeping inline with the hectic schedule, we were also joined by the new placement students on launch day. The day was really important as the students were able to meet each other and their colleagues for the first time. They took part in numerous activities, learnt more about their specific job roles and were give information about the local area. The evening saw both the current and future placements hit Luton Town for an all you can eat Chinese buffet, a few games of bowling and a few drinks in the local. All the forward planning meant the day ran smoothly and we’re looking forward to officially welcoming the new students when they begin in August.

Time is creeping up on us as we only have 3 months left here. We’re still making the most of the fantastic travel opportunities, taking holidays to places such as Jamaica, The Canaries and cruises around the Western Med.

During the next few months, product will be working on 2nd edition brochures, late trading will be pushing last minute summer holidays and early trading will be focusing on the launch of summer 2012. All in all, another busy few months…

What do you think of the TUI Placement Scheme? Would you like to work here!? Comment below!

“As this is our first blog of the year, let us start by wishing you all a Happy New Year.

It’s certainly been a hectic start to the year for staff at TUI as we saw how the severe snow had such an impact on sales and our customers. The trading team have been working hard as January is their busiest month. The product team have completed strategic planning and research for the summer 2012 programme. And there is never a dull day in the cruise department – with new itineraries to plan for the April edition brochure and trading targets to meet.

As mentioned in the previous blog, the placement students took a trip to Southampton to visit the Thomson Dream before it left for its transatlantic journey to the Caribbean. We had a tour around the newest ship to the Thomson fleet and got treated to lunch and cocktails – it was a really good day! We tried to stay on board and head to the Caribbean but unfortunately we just had to make do with Southampton! For many of us, it was our first time on a cruise liner and a few of us are already planning future cruise holidays.

Two of the placement students, Jac and Dec, had a fantastic opportunity to go to Aswan in Egypt with the chance to experience one of our products in the form of a Nile Cruise. While on board they had the chance to speak to customers and get feedback from the rep. It was an eye opener for them, to see how things could be improved as well as seeing things that are being done well. While on the trip they had the opportunity to visit the famous Abu Simbel temples and haggle in the markets of Luxor all in the space of 3 days!

Last weekend all of the placement students took part in the National Back to the Floor day where over 200 head office staff had the chance to return to retail and experience customer enquiries and bookings first-hand. We all returned to our home towns and really valued the experience as it reminded us how excited customers get about booking their holidays and the how important our roles are in contributing to their experience.

As you may all be aware, we are currently in the process of recruiting for next year’s placement students. We’ve helped out on the Assessment Days by running an ice-breaker exercise. It’s unbelievable how time flies as this time last year we were doing the same exercises and it only feels like yesterday! We would just like to wish all applicants good luck and say congratulations to those who have already secured a position – we know you’ll have a great year!

Coming up we’ve got more things to look forward to. We will soon be having our second commercial update (details of which are found in the first blog). Many of us are taking advantage of the great travel opportunities we have here and some of us are spending time in different departments to experience other sides of the business.”

You can find out more from TUI UK, as well as our other Guest Bloggers over the coming year!

Feel free to add your thoughts below! Would you like a placement at TUI UK?

“Hi! We are two of the ten new placement students at TUI UK and we will be sharing our experiences of our time here through regular blogs. I, Karla am studying Tourism Management at Bournemouth University and will be working in Accommodation Only, which is part of the Early Trading Team. Anna is studying International Business at Loughborough University and has a product role in the cruise department.

As a brief overview, in the trading department we analyse sales and react with pricing decisions depending on the current state of the economy. It is really is more interesting than it sounds!!! Product on the other hand is more to do with planning, co-ordinating brochure content and unit selection.

We started the placement with a three-week induction which gave us an intense overview of the company and its values and vision. For example, we had various presentations from numerous departments within Head Office such as Marketing, Finance and HR. This gave us an insight into how the different departments interlink and allowed us to meet key individuals within the company.

As part of the induction we were given training sessions that would develop our skills needed for the year ahead. We learnt about internal systems that we will be using in our job roles and we also had a useful session on how to use Excel – which jogged a few people’s memories! Each placement student was assigned time with their teams to get to know team members and more about their individual jobs.  The current placements were also with us over this period so they could share their knowledge and help us to settle in.

One area of the induction that we all really enjoyed was a mystery shop to the Thomson, First Choice and competitors travel agencies. Aside from all the giggles, we managed to gain some valuable information that we reported to the Customer Service Manager.

One thing that we have all discovered is that the commercial team isn’t afraid to socialise! Since starting, we have not been short of invites for all kinds of events such as: meals out at lunch, rounders tournaments, picnics in the park and team nights out.

One night that stands out, for those that can remember, was the night in London to say goodbye to the old placement students. An area was booked for us in Sway bar. It was a fantastic night and it was really nice to socialise with our team outside of the office.

Since the induction we have all been settling into our roles and familiarising ourselves with daily tasks. We have regular one to one meetings with our managers to discuss our progress and set objectives. A recent meeting we have all attended is the quarterly commercial update; it gave us an overview of the performance of the division and snapshots of future plans.

So far, everyone is having a great time and we will keep you updated on what we get up to throughout the year!”

Find out more from Karla and Anna, as well as our other Guest Bloggers in the next couple of weeks!

Since April we have heavily been involved in the planning for the summer 2011 launch from pricing to final brochure production. For the 2nd edition launch, there were a lot of late changes to the brochure pages prior to sign off and hotels that were featured, this meant that it was a very hectic time for us and the product team. Although it was a great achievement when the brochures were finalised and went to print and showed the hard work paid off!

360s

In May we received feedback from our 360 degree appraisals this was a great way to receive constructive feedback and areas for development from our colleagues. The 360 consisted of 3 sections that identified strengths and weaknesses and also looked at our personal levels of self awareness. We then made action plans with our line managers on how we can look to improve our development areas. This is something that has helped us get the most out of our last couple of months and can use in the future.

Go Karting

For our leaving activity all the placements and Tom, the placement manager went Go Karting. This was a chance to find out who was the new Michael Schumacher!! And everyone’s competitive streak came out! The winners got to stand on the podium to receive their medals. We then went for a feast at the local noodle bar.

Induction Week for new placements

We’ve had a three week crossover period with the new placement students to help them to settle into their new roles. We’ve been involved in the training of systems and day to day tasks. We have tried to think back to when we first started to make it as beneficial as possible for them – it makes us realise how much we have come on in the past year. This Thursday we will be having a welcome/leaving party in London. We’ve had a great year and both feel like we have progressed loads. We would definitely recommend a placement at TUI!! Now to the summer off before final year begins……….

Tenerife Trip

At the end of February we went on a resort trip to Tenerife and we were split in to two groups. Whilst we were there it was a mixture of fun and an educational work trip. On the first day once we arrived in sunny Tenerife we went to Siam Park, Europe’s biggest waterpark. It had some amazing slides including a kamikaze through a shark tank.

After our first day of fun, Friday was more serious. We visited the resort office, where the purchaser for Tenerife and resort Holiday Advisor managers are based. This was interesting to see what their roles involve as we talk to them on a daily basis but only in relation to our own roles, so it was interesting to see what else they do. In the afternoon after our resort visit we went to visit a few hotels in the resort we were staying.

Saturday was the busiest day of the trip. We went to see a range of our products on offer in Tenerife, from budget hotels to the flagship Sensatori Tenerife. We were all amazed at how nice Sensatori Tenerife was and all want to go back! It was the nicest hotel any of us have ever been in.

After the long day we met the reps for a night out. They showed us all the best places to go in Playa de las Americas. On Sunday morning we all went to the Riu Buenavista to do research for our project on this hotel, to match it against different products. When back in the UK we presented this to the Product Manager and Product Development. This was a really worthwhile project because we were able to judge the physical product instead of using internet sources for our research. We spent Sunday afternoon sunning ourselves round by the pool before going to the airport to catch our flight home, to be back in time for work on Monday.

Familiarisation Day

Yesterday all of the new placements for the 2010/2011 placement scheme came to the office in Luton to meet each other and their managers, to make the first day a little less daunting. Kate and Faye arranged the day for them, arranging presentations from the other placements on their jobs and moving to the area as well as some team building games. In the evening we all went for a Chinese buffet, bowling and then drinks after at Chicago’s. Everyone got to know each other well throughout the day, with all the new and old placements mixing together on the night out. It was really interesting for us to meet the people we will be training up to do our jobs. They all seem really nice and very excited to start and we can’t wait for them to come back in July and start with us.

NCWE Awards

A couple of weeks ago the TUI Commercial placement scheme won three awards at the National Council for Work Experience awards. We scooped the awards for Best Work Experience Provider: Over 250 Employees – Long term placements employing less than 20 students and Best Work Experience Provider: New Schemes. This is excellent considering the placement scheme has only been running for two years. Fighting off some of the biggest companies in the country we were named Best Overall Placement Scheme for 2009/10.

Katie, one of the current students went along with Rachel a Trading Assistant to attend the award ceremony. They were treated to a nice lunch and drinks and got to go up and collect our awards, which now take pride place in our awards cabinet. Everyone back in the office was really proud and it was featured in the Guardian last week with an interview by Katie.

Excel Training

In both of our day to day roles we use excel all the time. Tom, our placement manager, thought it would be helpful if we all had a bit of excel training to help us be more efficient and use some of the shortcuts in excel to make tasks quicker. All the placements went on the training and we all found it really useful. All the skills we learnt from this we feel will help us now in our day to day roles and in the future at other jobs and when we go back to Uni.

Tone of Voice Training

In December we went on a tone of voice training session. It was interesting to learn how a company’s ‘tone of voice’ can be really recognisable and a good tool to differentiate us from competitors. A good example of tone of voice is the instantly recognisable tone of Marks & Spencer’s ‘it’s not any chocolate pudding it’s…’ The session also covered communication skills, such as, e-mails and being on the phone. It was really useful to see how making a few changes to text can really make it stand out. This will be useful in our day to day roles when talking to external customers. It will also help when we go back to Uni when communicating on e-mail with tutors and Marketing projects. As well as knowing how far to go with formality in e-mails.

Commercial Christmas Party

On the afternoon of the Christmas Party all the departments in the Commercial Division went out for a Christmas Lunch. It was really good fun with lots of food and Christmas Carol’s. As well as Secret Santa fancy dress, with a few people getting a bad deal. Luckily me and Faye didn’t, we had angel wings and tiaras. After our late lunch we went out to a bar in Leicester Square where we met up with all the other departments. All the other departments had different fancy dress as well with Late Trading wearing some lovely hats and glasses or swimming caps and goggles in some cases and an Indian Chief Head Dress for another.

As the night went on and the booze was flowing, everybody got up for a boogie! Some people were a little worse for wear and had to leave a bit early, including one of the placements. The next day everyone was feeling a little worse for wear…

TUI Christmas Party

The week after the Commercial party which was held at a marquee in London. We all got our glad rags on in the office toilets (just like the Boots ad – we were all desperate for a bit of mirror space!) and then all got in coaches from Luton down to London.

When we arrived we all made the most of the free champagne and cocktails, and then we went into the main room were we were all seated with our teams. We had a 3 course meal with wine constantly flowing. In between courses the director gave a speech and handed out awards for recognition within the business. After the food and speeches we all went onto the dance floor to the cheesy music and a few of the directors were a bit worse for wear by showing of their dance moves!

At the end of the night we all got back on the coaches to head home, as we were getting closer to Luton rumours were flying about the snowy conditions back at Luton. As we got off the coach there was a thick blanket of snow and no taxis were running so there was no way home other than to walk. When we got into the office at 2am people were everywhere and quite a few had to make the most of the sofas downstairs. Heather and her flatmates ended up walking the hour journey home after borrowing a few warmer clothes for the journey. Faye ended up joining a few others and stayed the night in the office.

The next day barely anyone could make it into work due to the bad conditions, but we did!

A couple of weekends ago we went on our one night cruise from Harwich to Southampton on one of the Thomson cruise ships, the Spirit. On the cruise there were other TUI employees but also customers. When we first arrived in the ship we had a tour from one of the entertainment team onboard the ship; we got to visit the presidential suite (unfortunately we didn’t get to stay in there but it was nice to have a nosey!), the onboard facilities such as the cinema, swimming pools, spa and restaurants / bars. We then had a talk on shore excursions from the excursion manager which was interesting as we found out the range of excursions on offer such as a one day trip to St. Petersburg and to Jordan, White water rafting etc.

Following the daytime presentations we got to experience the all inclusive buffet which was taken advantage of! In the evening we all dressed up to go to the gala dinner where we went all out and tried unusual foods such as snails..then we went to the Motown show where the entertainment team sang and danced to well known songs which got us all in the mood for the night ahead! After the show we went to the onboard nightclub and partied until 5am! It was a good night, but the 8am departure wasn’t so good and we all felt a little worse for wear on the journey home!

Over the last few weeks we have been doing page and panel sign offs – this is where we need to check all brochure content very carefully to ensure they are accurate. This requires good product knowledge and attention to detail. We also attended a Time Management workshop last week run by Adrian from HR. We both found this really useful as recently we have had a very busy workload and tight schedules to follow so it has given us some useful tips of prioritising and organising our workload.

This week I (Faye) have been heavily involved in the new design of one of our products, so this has meant I have had a chance to give feedback on how I would like this to look and what I would like included. I am a brochure guardian of Simply which is a specialised brand hoping to give customers a more authentic experience of the culture they are visiting. Everyone in our department is a brochure guardian and this has given us a good opportunity to see what goes into the production of a brochure.

This weekend all the placement students, Tom the placement manager and some friends of ours all headed up to Skegness for the Twentys Reunion. We got to see loads of different acts such as Keith Harris and Orville, Pete Tong and Judge Jules. On Saturday night we all dressed up with some of us as superheroes, cartoon characters and Ghostbusters. This was a good chance to see everyone outside of the work environment and was a really fun weekend.