Expatriate Organizations

Among the companies dedicated to relocation services, it’s common the use of the word expatriate, since many times people in expatriation or expatriate workers need and can benefit from our management and adaptation services to their new residence in other countries. Fortunately, with the increase in migratory movements between countries and the growing internationalization by companies, expatriate organizations proliferate in our society. However, before talking about these organizations we should make a review of the term expatriate, as this may sound confusing to those who hear it for the first time, it can even lead to confusion with other similar words.

What is an expatriate or expa?

An expatriate or expat, is a person who resides temporarily or permanently outside their country of origin for work reasons. In this way, an expatriate worker will be the one who has left its country to work abroad. According to the dictionary, the word expatriate would also be valid to refer to a person who lives outside their homeland. The term comes from the medieval latin word expatriatus(past participle of expatriāre that means banish), and patri (native land). On the other hand, the words immigrant or emigrant would be used to refer to people who move out of their country depending on their displacement flow: If they leave their country of origin to settle abroad (emigrant) or They arrive in another country to reside in it (immigrant).
In any case, due to the tendency on the part of companies to penetrate international markets, the term expatriate is coined to refer to workers in situations of displacement in other countries, either because their company has delegations in other countries or because they have entered the country to perform their job duties.

Expatriate Organizations

Changing residence for work is always difficult, but also if your next place of residence is abroad, this can be a challenge! For that reason, there are organizations for expatriates, whose function is to make you feel at home wherever you go.

Expatriate organizations help expatriate workers adapt to their new destination. How do they do that? These organizations form communities of workers who reside temporarily outside their country of origin and provide for those who compose it, all kinds of events and activities, so that expatriates get to know the local culture, improve the language and meet with other people with whom they share interests and hobbies.

In addition to being very useful to enable the integration of expatriate workers to the place where they have been assigned, organizations for expats are very useful if you want to forge or expand a professional network of contacts. From organizations for expatriates, networking events with added value in plurality are promoted and coordinated. These events offer the opportunity for its members to meet professionals from anywhere in the world, as well as from different professional sectors. Expats that are part of these organizations can, in this way, create a professional network of international contacts. Likewise, networking in these situations is also interesting for expatriates from the point of view of the establishment of new labor relations and the search for new professional opportunities that benefit companies and expatriate workers.

InterNations

One of the most prominent expatriate organizations worldwide is InterNations. This organization founded in 2007 by Malte Zeeck, Philipp von Plato and Christian Leifeld, is currently the world’s largest global network of expats. With 3.7 million members, the InterNations community is present in more than 420 cities around the planet. One of the peculiarities of InterNations is its membership, since to guarantee a safe community formed by civic expatriates, InterNations carefully reviews each application to join the organization, being the membership only by approval.

Some of the tasks covered by this organization for expatriate workers are:

Connecting its members: InterNations allows its members to contact other expatriate workers who are living in the same city. The organization allows its members to contact offline, through events, meetings that are coordinated from the organization; or online using your mobile application or your website as a contact platform. This function is very useful for expatriate workers who land in a new country and do not know anyone in their new destination. Whether it’s extroverted expats that don’t want to miss any event, or people whose availability to attend meetings is smaller and prefer to meet other expats from the other side of the screen, InterNations makes it possible for expatriates to meet each other and share new experiences or even build new labor relations (networking).
Organization of expatriate events: As we mentioned before, one of the functions that the expatriate organization fulfills is the creation of events aimed at allowing expatriate workers to meet and expand their professional network. In this way, expatriate organizations help the expat in its temporary place of residence, to not feel alone and meet other people with interests and hobbies similar to its. These kinds of events are very varied, being able to fluctuate between a etiquette dinner, a networking meeting or just an informal evening meeting.
Provide advice and useful information about your next destination: Another of the functions that InterNations fulfills as an organization is to offer its members real testimonies from other expats who have previously resided in another country and have decided to share their experiences with the community. These testimonies are constituted as a faithful story that in many cases serves as guidance for new expats in that area. In addition, through their articles on the web and other publications on their social networks, they give interesting tips, advice and information for expatriates. To this would be added its forum, in which its members can open threads, start discussions and share stories about their experiences as expatriates.

Relomar with InterNations

As a relocation company, in Relomar we support the work carried out by expatriate organizations to facilitate the adaptation of expatriates to their new environment. That is why we support the InterNations labour and attend their events in Valencia and other cities in Spain whenever we have the opportunity, wanting to show our expatriate friends that they can count on us in their transfer, move and adaptation to their new destination.

Lorena Pau, Relomar’s CEO at the Stars for Stars event of InterNations Valencia

We understand the difficulty of starting from scratch in another country and residing in a new city, so we provide solutions to help expatriate workers feel at home. Some services that we have available for expatriate workers are:

Relocation services in Madrid, Valencia, Barcelona, Seville, Balearic Islands, Canary Islands …
Import of vehicles to Spain. If you want to continue driving your car or motorcycle in your new place of residence, we help you with the transfer and import of your vehicle to Spain.
Pet transport. We make sure to take your dog, cat or pet with you, so you can be together in your new home.
Immigration services. We take care of offering information, managing documentation and visas for expatriate workers.