 In this topic and the subsequent ones, we are going to discuss about the components of pre-departure training. Pre-departure training is one of the most important components of training that is given to international expatriate assignees. Pre-departure training plays a very important role in making a person adjusted to the new culture. So we are going to look at the various different components of pre-departure training in this topic and the subsequent ones. In this topic, we are going to look at the component of pre-departure training which is the preliminary visits. So let's take a look what are preliminary visits. Preliminary visits are basically visits which are designed to help a person who is going on an international assignment to assess their suitability regarding the culture and the position that they are going to hold in that international assignment. So preliminary visit is before actually giving the assignment to the person, before actually selecting the person for that assignment, the person is sent on a preliminary visit. Sometimes the spouse and children, they are also accompanying the person so that they can go and see the culture. They can go and see the facilities, the way life is lived in that particular place so that they can know where they are going. So it is possible that a week or two weeks visit is being given to the person who is going on an international assignment. Preliminary visits are given to the person who is going on an international assignment. This is the place, this is the city, these are the facilities, you have to work here. That is something which is part of your pre-departure training. People who go on these preliminary visits, they get an exposure of the place, they get an exposure of the culture, they get a feel of the place, the feel of the weather, feel of the environment of the organization. So a preliminary visit can be a source of training, it can be a source of training in the way that a person will get trained and oriented towards the new environment in which they are going to go and live. So preliminary visits, they allow the candidates to assess their suitability. And if they feel that they are suitable for this assignment, then they take up the assignment so that the expatriate failure rate can be reduced. It also helps them to assess the interest in their assignment. So in preliminary visits, they go and visit the organization, visit the culture, visit the market. And they can realize that how much interest they have in this assignment. Because usually when you don't understand what you are talking about, you can realize that how much you are interested in that. It also provides introduction to the business context. So what environment do you want to work in? How do you want to interact with people? How do you want to survive in the market? How is the setup of your organization? Even to the extent that your facilities are designed, how is the office space designed? All these are part of your business context. So this is something which is part of, you can get introduced to this as part of the preliminary visit. It leads to more informed pre-departure preparation. So pre-departure means before leaving your home country, you are going to the host country. So you can prepare well, you can prepare well in, you can prepare yourself mentally. You can prepare yourself according to the requirements. What things do you want to take with you? How do you want to take your clothes with you? What things do you want to take for children? What kind of life are you expecting there? So all this type of pre-departure preparation, mental preparation as well as physical preparation can be done if a preliminary visit is given to the person. It also helps in initial adjustment process because if you are given a preliminary visit, you know that where you are going and what kind of challenges you may be facing. So it helps in the initial adjustment process. The data on preliminary visits, the data coming from research, it tells us that 53% of the firms, they always provided preliminary visits to their expatriate, assignees, people who were going on international assignments. And this was from a European survey in 1997. Average length of the stay was one week. Country of assignment was the determining factor. If the country of assignment was different, if it was a country where the person had not visited before or the culture was different or there was possibility of other type of animosity or hostility, then country of assignment was the determining factor in deciding about these preliminary visits. It was not provided to people if candidate were already familiar. And a very interesting fact which emerged out of this survey was that if the host country is a place where nobody wants to go, then preliminary visits were not provided. So the organization, the multinational, when they were sending people to places, for example, hardship areas or for places which the condition of living was very poor or where different types of problems were expected, in that situation where it was expected, then preliminary visits were not provided. So it was a very interesting finding that emerged out of this survey that the organizations they actually withheld and they actually tried to trick their employees to take up the assignment without providing them the preliminary visits because if they saw it, then they would not go on this assignment. So the information was actually hidden in this kind of a situation. So this is about the preliminary visits, when and how they are given, what are their benefits and what are the major features regarding preliminary visits and international assignments.