Rodrigo Santana | JET Intern in Brazil

Are you familiar with the feeling of being inside an airplane and seeing the “fasten your seatbelts” sign turning on? Knowing that for the next hours you won’t be able to move freely, that you’ll be forced to be sited on an uncomfortable chair doing absolutely nothing? Well, being an Expedian is the exact opposite of that!

I’ve started my internship at Expedia Group’s São Paulo office back in October 2018 as part of the Jumpers program with another 11 students. It’s been an overwhelming experience from day one. It would take me a whole blog just to share all of the amazing experiences I was lucky to experience these past seven months, both professionally and personally. But I promise I’ll keep the long story short and share only the highlights.

I came from an accountability office where I would spend the entire day transferring numbers from the sheets to the computers and from the computers to the sheets (seatbelts completely fastened!). I was immediately contrasted by Expedia Group’s mindset regarding their employees. It was like a fresh wind blowing on my face. The company’s effort regarding diversity, environmental care and social causes caught my eye right away.

I was hired for the JET Team (responsible for acquiring new properties) and promptly got acquainted with our most important guiding principle ( in my personal opinion!): One Team, Group First! I’m choosing this one because from day one when I entered this brand-new office full of diverse people, it was clear to me that everybody here as willing to help me get used to this new environment and with the challenges I would confront. My peers have trained me and offered me help on learning and relentlessly striving for better.

As I was feeling more confident, my manager – Humberto Biffani – allowed me to take more and more responsibilities, always keeping my improvement and my performance in mind. 

Nowadays, I’m responsible for all the self-serving properties who come to our website in Brazil with another intern (Mariana Castro). I was part of the Samba Project’s travels, which allowed Brazil to be the market with the biggest gain of share against the competitors and I’m being able to develop my own personal projects such as automation of the onboarding and update of the Join Expedia routines, in order to make it simpler to our partners. There is no day like the last one at Expedia Group. Things are in constant change and the best part is that you, even as an intern, can be as involved as anyone else!

Personally, experiences such as the offsite trip that we took with the entire Lodging Partner Services (LPS) team were precious. These kinds of situations bring us together as a team and inspire us to be the best versions of ourselves among each other, so we can also do it with the partners. Also, all the interns had the chance to have lunch with Ait Voncke, our Senior Vice President. He shared some of his personal experiences with us and answered our questions. This shows how we are all in the same team having each other’s backs; it doesn’t matter how long you have been with the company.

For someone who could be thinking about joining Expedia Group today, I would advise the following: get ready for the most challenging experience of your professional life, but always keep in mind that everyone, from the leadership team to the interns will be glad to make your journey a little easier. Also, get ready to reach new heights. Because even though we are a traveling platform, we don’t like our seatbelts fastened!

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