Today we said adieu to one of the first interns to join us in March 2016. Her name is Zek, short for Ntombizekhetelo Khumalo. Straight after graduating from the University of KwaZulu Natal with Honours in Cultural and Heritage Tourism in 2015, she joined Team Wetu, all sweet, shy and slightly scared of her own shadow.

What Zek thought then: “Oh my God, I’m working now, feeling almost grown up.”

img_0560We involved Zek in all sorts of Wetu things. Her main focus was building itineraries, iBrochures, and Digital Catalogues for demo accounts, used as sales and marketing collateral. She took over responsibility for the Wetu iBrochure Translation Service, liaising with clients and translators, managed office equipment procurement, admin, filing, front desk reception, and dabbled in a bit of debt collection.

Being fully trained on Wetu systems means she’s au fait with all operator and supplier tools alike, a huge advantage in her new job with our esteemed client, Giltedge Travel. She starts as an Admin Consultant, working with their Senior Consultants. Her ambition is to become a Tours Consultant, build awesome itineraries for her clients, develop great product knowledge, and to keep Wetu Support on their toes with the occasional perfectly valid query.👩‍💻 She knows we’re constantly developing our technology, so it pays to keep the lines of communication with us wide open.

It’s no accident how Zek landed this job with one of our clients. We’ve recognised the need for a Wetu Internship Programme, and planned to train passionate, travel-mad graduates like Zek for at least 6 months. So this is the start: get them Wetu certified, skilled up in our tools; so that they hit the ground running in the working world. We’re great believers in skills development within employment and we want to empower our clients with capable, motivated employees. There’s no substitute for structured, goal-driven training on the job. It serves tourism graduates, it serves the Wetu user who employs them, we get to spread the #WetuLove for travel tech, and it serves the trade. This kind of initiative is in great demand, if the many requests from clients are anything to go by – to prevent their fighting over our interns, we hope to cultivate more talent for the tourism job market. Companies are looking to place Wetu certified interns in all sorts of locations, from London to Sydney. So we invite graduates (from all over the world) to submit applications to join our programme. Feel free to spread the word.

zek4zek3Who was her favourite Wetu colleague? She answered, mystifyingly so: “Isabella… because she pays my salary.” Well, a few other things she’s now also perfected are lame jokes, mischievous giggling, noisy team lunches and Friday beer ‘o clock..

At Zek’s farewell cupcake and boohoo party, asked what she thinks now about her time here, she said: “Wetu made me comfortable to speak up, ask questions, want to learn.. I really have grown up! I’m so ready for this next step.” 

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