The Internship

Seminyak, October 4, 2010: 14.30

I have had my first 2 weeks at my internship at Puri Saron Hotel Seminyak. And it has been an interesting 2 weeks. The planning for my complete internship is that I will rotate between the departments. I’m now for 2 months in the Front Office (FO), then I will continue with Food & Beverage (F&B) service for 1½ month and 1½ month F&B kitchen, followed by 2 months housekeeping, two months accounting and lastly 1 month in Sales & Marketing (S&M). This is the planning now, but it might be adjusted along the road.

My first day was an introduction day with a tour through the hotel, introduction to colleagues and an introduction in the FO. The manager of the FO is very open about my stay and except to learn from me as I can learn from him. We agreed that it would be better if I first learn how the FO (and the hotel) is working, before I start with my management tasks. So we made a schedule for 3 weeks where I would work in each section of the FO: bellboy, operator, Guest Service Attended (GSA, meaning front desk employee) Guest Relations Officer (GRO, handles and is an extra services towards the guests) and reservations.

Now 2 of the 3 weeks are over and I know already a lot more about the hotel and the FO. I’ve learned how they work and how their systems work. On Bali every hotel works as well with a computer system as manually, this due to the instable electricity. This means a lot of extra work, but that is no problem because in every section is at least working 1 person too much, comparing it to western standards. With the result that there is a lot of times nothing to do and when there is nothing to do than I mean NOTHING to do and waiting. These times are good to get to know the colleagues, but I’m also very glad that 1 of the guests had left a Voetbal International (Dutch football magazine), which lies around in the back office☺.

The colleagues are nice, friendly and interested in me and why I’m staying so long. They know Stenden (my university), because Stenden has a campus on Bali as well, which offers International Hospitality Management (my education). Puri Saron is the learning company for the students of Stenden Bali. This means that students from Stenden Bali are doing practice at Puri Saron, like I have done in my first 3 years at Stenden University Hotel (the hotel connected to Stenden Leeuwarden). I often have to explain that I’m not coming from Stenden Bali, but from Stenden in The Netherlands and that there is a huge difference. Stenden Bali has just started and only has 4 students in the second year left (they started with 12 students) and around 8 in the first year.

The management of Puri Saron has not been very positive about the students of Stenden Bali until now. Most students where spoiled rich kids that never worked in their lives and where unwilling to work and to learn (luckily most of them have stopped now). Last Friday I had a meeting with the GM from Stenden Bali and she would like me to play a role between the 2 parties. The exact role has to be divined, but I will maybe start up procedures and manuals so that the students now what is expected from them and that they are graded accordingly. Soon I will visit Stenden Bali for an introduction over there and then there will come a meeting with the management and owner of Puri Saron, Stenden Bali and me.

The hotel itself
Puri Saron Hotel Seminyak is a self graded 4 star hotel with 100 rooms, divided over 59 deluxe rooms, 36 bungalows and 5 villa’s. Almost all the rooms are rented out through tour operators and their main market is Australia, on the second place comes The Netherlands. The hotel has a pool with pool bar, 2 restaurants, a spa, some meeting rooms (hardly used) and is connected to the beach. There are a lot of thinks that have to be improved before the hotel can really call itself a 4 star hotel. These aspects I hope to use for the business improvement plan that I have to write for my education.