世帝喜旅行社股份有限公司

It is an affiliated company of Japan’s JTB travel agency and Taiwan’s South East Travel Service. After leaving work or resigning, you will have plenty of stories to tell. If your dream is to hold a title at a Japanese company, you may want to consider it.

The senior management is constantly in turmoil. Promotions favor Japanese employees and men, and depend entirely on the wishes of HR and the president. After the pandemic, employees were even asked to voluntarily accept pay cuts or “face the consequences.” As a result, the company saved on personnel expenses, while HR placed a friend’s child in an internship position and later forced the department manager to take them on as a full-time employee, even though their language skills were completely inadequate. Not to mention the benefits! As for overtime pay and such matters? At least before I left, I had never heard of anyone daring to apply to HR for it—perhaps it was all for the sake of friendly Taiwan–Japan relations. Otherwise, this would probably have been a company subjected to relentless labor inspections long ago.

The employee benefits are excellent, and the salary is higher than at typical travel agencies. The Dragon Boat Festival bonus of 6,000 and the Mid-Autumn Festival bonus of 3,000 are both paid in cash. When business performance is good, there are also additional bonuses. For the past two years, the year-end bonus has been nearly four months’ salary. The year-end banquet is held at a major hotel with lucky draws, and there is an overseas employee trip every year. Everything complies with the Labor Standards Act.

1. There is limited room for growth. Travel agencies are just like that, and personally, I don’t think staying in a front-desk/window position for life is a solution.

2. The supervisors are extremely useless. One supervisor got the position through connections; anything requiring assistance that is handed to him gets thrown back to you with instructions to figure it out yourself.

3. Another Japanese supervisor came from general affairs and introduced a bunch of reforms solely to make the accounting easier, making things extremely difficult to handle in practice.

Nevertheless, despite the supervisors being so [expletive-like], the company still sets new performance records every year. Personally, I find that quite amazing…

Therefore, if you can tolerate incompetent supervisors and are not seeking to rise to the top, this company is a very good choice.

After being referred by an agency, I got an interview opportunity. The company stated that applicants who were not serious should not apply. The interview panel consisted of a Taiwanese manager, a Japanese general manager, and a Japanese president. The atmosphere was rather serious. They asked simple travel-related questions (Which are the top hotels in Taipei? Where would you take Japanese people in Taipei? Don’t use clichés.), followed by questions about my numerical and logical reasoning, computer skills, and whether I had basic English ability (because the work interface is in English; no conversational or essay-writing ability is needed at all—they just check whether you can understand vocabulary). I could tell that they placed emphasis on personality traits—whether you are friendly, smile, and remain optimistic—and were willing to train applicants without experience. The Taiwanese manager then introduced the company’s situation and benefits. The interview lasted approximately fifteen minutes or less.

You need to have a strong heart.

Large companies tend to have more specialized divisions. Personally, I find this troublesome because you have to contact many departments, and it can be somewhat inconvenient when everyone is not progressing at the same pace.

New hires start at approximately 30–33.

With meals provided, the total is close to 35 when the meal allowance is included.

Employee meals are ordered on a rotating basis from several nearby noodle shops and other restaurants, and vegetarian options can also be ordered. If you bring your own lunch or want to eat out, you can order fruit or freshly made juice. Japanese ability is quite important because there are many tourism-related technical terms used for hotels and so on; you get used to them after hearing them for a while. It’s fine if you don’t have experience in the tourism industry—everyone is quite willing to teach you, although they are all pretty busy 😅. When I first joined, I heard everyone speaking Japanese on the phone and thought they were talking to Japanese people, but halfway through, it suddenly turned into Taiwanese, haha. Even when communicating internally, Taiwanese colleagues routinely switch between Japanese, Taiwanese, and Mandarin. The company is basically short-staffed in 「見積り」 & 「窓口」. The main work involves planning itinerary budgets; simply put, it feels more like 「線控」 or 「OP」 work. It’s considered a relatively quick way to understand the basic work inside the company. The company also has bidet toilets with heated seats. You have to scan your employee card when entering and leaving and when using the restroom. Women are provided with uniforms (like bank employees); men wear shirts, and the company provides ties.

You need to have a strong heart.

Larger companies have more specialized divisions of labor. Personally, I find it rather troublesome because you need to contact many departments, and it can be a bit difficult when everyone’s progress is out of sync.

The company benefits are quite good. In addition to a substantial year-end bonus, female employees receive one paid menstrual leave day per month, there are employee uniforms, and an NT$80 lunch is provided (the delivered food is generally quite tasty). Ninety-nine percent of the employees are women. If you like the travel industry, JTB's annual salary is genuinely very good compared with other travel agencies. However, the travel industry is really quite busy and is also a type of service industry, so you should be mentally prepared. In addition, internal transfers between departments are common at the company... In short, if you consider yourself lively and able to withstand hard work, you can give JTB a try; it would also be a good place to gain experience temporarily.

The employee benefits are very good, and the salary is higher than at typical travel agencies. The Dragon Boat Festival bonus of 6,000 and the Mid-Autumn Festival bonus of 3,000 are both paid in cash. There are also additional bonuses when business performance is good. For the past two years, the year-end bonus has been nearly four months’ salary. The annual company banquet is held at a major hotel with a lucky draw, and there is an overseas employee trip every year. Everything complies with the Labor Standards Act. So why did I still resign?

Because: 1. The opportunities for growth are limited; travel agencies are what they are. 2. The supervisors are extremely incompetent. One supervisor got the position through connections, and anything given to him that requires assistance is simply returned with instructions to figure it out yourself. 3. Another Japanese supervisor came from general affairs and introduced a bunch of reforms solely to make the accounts easier to manage, making things extremely difficult to carry out in practice.

Nevertheless, even with the supervisors being so... so... the company still sets new performance records every year. Personally, I find that quite amazing...

So, if you can tolerate incompetent supervisors and are not seeking to rise through the ranks, this company is a very good choice.