Internship at Oporto Adventure Tours tourism company in Porto

Skaistė Jauraitė

I am a graduate of Creative Industries at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University. Within this program I was focusing my studies on the Communication and Media. One year after my graduation, I chose to make my Erasmus+ graduate internship at Oporto Adventure Tours tourism company in Porto.

I spent 3 amazing months of spring in the second largest city of Portugal – Porto. Only upon arrival, I was impressed by the beauty of the city and the kindness of the people. Portuguese comparing with other Europe southern countries, really speak English well so it was easy to communicate with them and understand their culture.

Oporto Adventure Tours is tourism company which organizes hiking tours to one of the most beautiful national parks in Europe – Peneda Gerês. The company is not big and has a small office in the city center, but employees spend most of their time in the park on tours. The company really cares for its work and that is why they highly recommended by customers on the worldwide TripAdvisor Network.

The aim of my traineeship was to get acquainted with the activities of the tourism company, as much as possible to learn about the company’s structure and main goals. I worked as a media trainee, so all the focus was on creating professional media content. I had trips to Peneda Gerês National Park in the northern part of Portugal, where I took photos and videos of stunning nature, local villages and clients who were on tours. It was really exciting because we were travelling by Land Rover jeeps through the mountains and forests. Nature in that park is incredible! The company asked me to create a high-quality photo gallery, so I focused on the selection and editing of the photos. Also, I created promo videos for potential tour clients and for social networks such as Instagram and Facebook. The company’s staff was completely confident in my work, so I had a lot of freedom in my work. During my traineeship, I improved my skills in photo editing, colour grading as well as I learned how to make really dynamic videos, because it should had been brief and really comprehensible. I also improved my ability to communicate with people from different countries and cultures.

After 3 months, I would definitely say that it is one of the best experiences I have ever had, because I improved my skills of media content creating, got learn more about tourism, visited the most spectacular Peneda Gerês National Park in the region, and of course I have met many kind people and fell in love with Portuguese culture.