Meet the Experts in Working Adventures Abroad [Q&A]
Samuel Miao is a Marketing Assistant at BUNAC UK, and he’s all about travel with meaning.
Samuel Miao is a BUNAC star
When it comes to working, interning and volunteering abroad, BUNAC is something of a giant. Active in the UK since 1962, the organization has helped over a quarter of a million people with their overseas adventures - and they have a lot of fun doing it. In this 10 Good Questions, marketing assistant Samuel Miao tells Goodnet about the team’s formidable world knowledge, group trips, and BUNAC’s ‘Rate my Bake’ office competition.
1. What is your organization’s mission?
Our mission is to help young people have an amazing experience learning new skills and make new friends by working, interning and volunteering abroad. We want them to get off the beaten track and come to understand the cultures of the countries they visit.
2. What makes you guys different from the rest?
We’ve helped over a quarter of a million people to work abroad since 1962. With all of this experience, we have been able to understand our customers and develop some really unique products that are exclusive to us. Our Group Flights are a great example of this, allowing our BUNACers to make friends before they start their working holiday: they have access to an exclusive Facebook group for their departure and they fly together with a three-day stopover in Hong Kong or Iceland. We’re also currently working on lots of new and exciting projects in some amazing destinations around the world, so watch this space.
3. Offices or open work space?
We have an open work space. This works really well for us as we are a very close-knit team and we’re always asking each other questions - we’ve pretty much been to every country in the world between us, which is great when we’re advising our customers. Plus, our open work space lets us hold our ‘Rate my Bake’ competition, which we couldn’t live without!
A BUNAC group trip
4. What three words describe your organization?
Fun, knowledgeable and adventurous.
5. What inspires you?
What inspires us here at BUNAC is doing a great job for our customers, ensuring that they have a seamless and enjoyable experience and come home with amazing memories.
6. What is the best part about your job?
The best part of my job is talking about all of our amazing products at our free travel talks and exhibitions around the country, at different STA Travel stores and universities. I love to travel, so I am really enthusiastic about helping others to plan their next trip, whether they are a first-time traveler or seasoned pro.
7. Does your team eat lunch together?
We sure do! We love spending time with the team, and mix it up daily and like to try lots of different outlets along Kensington High Street (in London). It’s good to take a break from work and just relax with the rest of the team.
A travel presentation in BUNAC's London office
8. Facebook or Twitter?
Definitely Twitter. Our customers always have lots of questions and many of them take to Twitter to ask us. Twitter lets us give instant responses to those queries and also lets other BUNACers see answers to questions that they may not have even considered. Plus, we love a live-tweet at our events that happen around the country, from our travel talks to our Summer Camp Recruitment Fair.
9. What do you want Goodnet users to know about your organization?
We’ve been around for over 52 years. We actually started as a university society at Cambridge University, so there’s pretty much nothing that we don’t know about working holidays.
10. How can people get involved?
If someone has that wanderlust to go abroad and do something different, they can find out more by giving us a call and speaking to one of the team or checking out all of our programs on our website www.bunac.org. They can also check out lots of blogs from past BUNACers and our staff who’ve had amazing travel experiences in BUNAC destinations.
