Staff Interview with Elizabeth Wallace

What led you to joining the Euroace team?

Before moving to Valencia, I had been working with a company which organizes Study Abroad and Education Travel programs for students. When I moved to Valencia, I began searching for companies in this industry. I was introduced to Euroace and was immediately interested in working with them. It was exactly what I was looking for related to my background and interest. I love helping to create an unforgettable experience abroad for others like I had, which began my journey to moving abroad after graduating.

What influences your marketing efforts for Euroace?

I would say the current and past students and interns we have participating on our programs are the main influence of marketing efforts. We like to use their experiences (in photos, interviews, videos, and more) to help future students or interns get a real picture of what they could experience if they join our programs.

This could be as simple as photos of a Spanish class or interns at work, or photos and videos of students on an exciting day trip or participating in a fun local activity. Interviews of the students and interns after their program also allow us to understand which parts of the program are most interesting or memorable to the students.

Why is Euroace easy to market to prospective students?

I would say marketing to prospective students is fairly easy since Euroace has been around for several years and is full of success stories. Students come to Spain and have life-changing experiences on a personal level, but they also develop in so many ways they might not have expected. They gain career experience, improve their language skills, make friends with people from other countries and cultures totally different from their own. They leave wanting to come back, so their interviews and photos (and everything mentioned in the previous question) all make it easy to portray their great experience to future students!

Why do you think it is important for individuals to travel and experience new cultures?

I think it’s very important for individuals to experience new cultures - it allows them to open their minds and see things from new perspectives. It’s so easy to live in a bubble in your own city or even an area of your city, and not realize what other types of lives people have or the things people in other places deal with on a daily basis.

I believe traveling and experiencing new cultures allows you to see and understand people and other cultures, and also to see your own life and community in a different way. It also helps you to relate to a broader group of people and opens the doors to friendships, careers, and life experiences.

What does meaningful travel mean to you?

Meaningful travel to me means immersing in a different culture when traveling there and perhaps traveling more “slowly”, not only visiting a city or place and the famous sites it has to offer and running off to the next city and list of sites. Of course these famous and historic sites hold importance, but it’s easy to visit them without fully understanding or feeling any different than if you were to look at a picture of them online.

Immersing in the culture means talking with the locals and trying to adapt to their culture - maybe this means having dinner with an Indian family in their home while in India, simply walking around different local neighborhoods while in Italy and having the espresso in a local cafe, or going on a motorcycle ride around the rice fields of the Philippines. The more people travel, the more they are open to new adventures and feel comfortable in different cultures and countries.

Why should someone choose Euroace over competitors?

I think Euroace is unique in that the company is actually based in Valencia - many major corporations may offer something similar (study abroad, intern, or gap year programs) but they are not based in the city they offer the programs in—meaning they work with a local company to manage everything.

By doing this there is always something lost between working with other companies, the program cannot always be held to the same standard and there is no first-hand interaction with the companies the students will work with or the student accommodation, for example.

Euroace is made up of a team who are in constant contact with not only each and every company interns work with, but also host families, student accommodation staff, and anyone involved in cultural activities. This means that we can give the best experience to the students because we know everything that is going on and can resolve any problems quickly without going through other people.