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Many agents and schools involved in the work and travel industry have a background in dealing with language or education travel clients and report that this particular sector appeals to a narrower client profile with more serious career goals.
Agent Enrique Torres from Ordex Cultural Exchange based in Ecuador says that clients looking for work and travel placements are typically university students aged between 21 and 24 years old. “The work placement candidate is looking for a short-term experience to improve his/her CV at a very affordable cost, with expectations to recover all expenses and, in some cases, even make money,” he explains.
Improving job prospects and adding to a CV are often the principal motivations behind a work and study trip and these types of clients have usually spent many years learning the language in a classroom setting. Jesus Vela-Alvizu from Universitas Travel & Study in Mexico says that his work and travel clients differ from other language travel clients in that they are not looking to learn a language in a school environment. “What these students are looking for is more the work environment experience, interaction with professionals and dealing with real-life situations, [while also] using a different language in a different culture,” he says. Vela-Alvizu agrees with Torres when he says that most work and travel clients are either recent graduates or are enrolled in their last year at university and are more focussed as to the career goals of their trip. However, Barbara Godt from King George International College in Vancouver, Canada, notes that their internship programmes attract two types of clients. “The first… are looking to advance their career by improving their English skills and obtaining international work experience in a field related to their education,” she says. “There are also those students who are simply looking to improve their English in a real life English-speaking working environment.”
For those whose main focus of an internship is to improve their language skills in a natural environment, the increased independence and lower costs involved in internship programmes may be a motivating factor, according to Torres. “Work placement programmes – in the USA especially – cost less than US$1,000 and the students expect to cover all their expenses, trip-related costs and save money while working for the average of 12 weeks,” he says. “Language learning courses run for about US$10,000-$12,000 per year and usually the students are not allowed to work while studying.”
Some work placement providers note that their typical clients can be very country specific, mainly because of differing business environments and career expectations around the world. Heidi Schroeder, Work Placement Co-ordinator at Good Hope Studies in Cape Town, South Africa, says that most of the students enrolling on their work placement programmes are either German or Swiss nationals because it is “advantageous for them to have an international internship on their CV when applying for work in their respective countries”. She adds, “Many of them also require international experience as part of their studies and take a study break to come and do the unpaid practical training here in South Africa.”
Eva-Maria Simms from International Language Schools of Canada in Vancouver, Canada agrees that students from some countries are more motivated to undertake internships in a foreign country. “[Most of the students on our work placements are] Asian – Korea, Japan, etc – as well as Latin American – Brazil, Mexico, etc – students due to the career enhancement effect that a placement usually has in their home countries,” she says.
However, Rebekah Gilchrist from Australian Internships, based in Brisbane, says that there is no such thing as a ‘typical’ work and travel client. “Each candidate has different objectives and expectations,” she explains, adding that they deal with up to 800 internship placements from 43 countries each year.
As the work and travel industry is still relatively new, compared with language travel for example, many providers rely on a variety of recruitment methods in order to reach new clients. Agents appear to be an established part of the recruiting mix for many, although they often offer work and travel programmes alongside other language and education travel products.
Toni Brandi from GTS International in the Czech Republic says that they are a specialised student travel agency. “We offer three different types of programmes to our students,” he says. “Work and travel products, which are temporary summer jobs in the USA, Canada, UK, France, etc, work and study programmes that enable the students to work part time and attend language courses – eg, in Australia and New Zealand – and language courses only.”
For providers, this can mean that educating agents about their products is a priority. Simms in Canada says that “most agents have to be taught proactively about the new programmes”, although this is not always the case. “Our agents are mostly language travel agents,” she says. “Some of them have prioritised work & study and put enhanced efforts into those programmes.”
New agent business
For language travel agencies, offering work and travel programmes can be a good way of broadening their client base. Internship programmes often attract university students and new graduates whose specific career goals mean that they would be unlikely to travel overseas on a general school-based language course.
Eva-Maria Simms from International Language Schools of Canada in Vancouver, Canada, says that their work experience and internship programmes have benefited their agents’ business. “The new programmes have definitely brought a new clientele to our agents since they are able to serve a broader community with more variable interests now,” she says.
In many cases, offering work and travel programmes can be a way of complimenting existing course offerings and offer an alternative way of learning a language in a different country. Ricardo Guerrero from TIJE Travel in Argentina says that young people in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay are often looking for a whole different experience when travelling overseas. “They look for work experience abroad to learn about other cultures [and get to] know other people,” he says.
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