Wednesday the 22nd of April was our first day of official ‘research’: an introduction meeting with the DMO (Destination Management Organisation) Flores with which we are collaborating for our research. Everybody dressed up nicely in business clothing which was not very comfortable in a climate of 30 degrees, but it did look very professional. After half an hour ride in a bus that didn’t fit my knees we arrived at the office of Swisscontact. We were welcomed with water and local snacks, followed by presentations of two representatives about their project and about the island of Flores in general. It was very interesting to finally hear first hand about their goals and activities!
After a short break, we continued with presentations of our four different research groups explaining about the research we are conducting. For those interested, our main focus is on the enhancement of value chains (the chain of activities needed to make a product or a service, for example transport is needed for distributing food). In four teams we will look at distribution of benefits for local people on an economic, social and cultural level, specifically with regard to: 1) boat tours, 2) fresh food production, 3) wildlife-, nature- & adventure tours and 4) cultural heritage & event tours. Data will be collected in the two weeks we are on Flores, by means of interviewing local stakeholders and other research methods. In the end, we hope we will be able to give some recommendations to the DMO Flores to improve parts of the tourism sector there.
When the official part of the day was finished, we all changed to more comfortable clothing and got back on the bus to Ubud. Ubud is a small town in the middle of Bali, which is famous for its ‘Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary’ and lively shopping area. Most of us went into the monkey forest, which was filled with hundreds of monkeys. They were very much used to tourists as they would just hop on tourists’ laps or shoulders and tourists could feed them bananas. This I did not want so I just watched others and the nice tropical forests which contained many immense trees and many temples. Deceased from the local community of Ubud can even be buried in the forest, however, only once every five years.
A little while later we had enough of all the monkeys and walked into town. Unfortunately we walked into the wrong direction and didn’t see much of the touristic and shopping area of Ubud, but we did find a supermarket and a nice place to eat. After being followed by a dog who wanted to join us back to the Netherlands we were attacked by a monkey who stole the bananas we just bought. I just gave them away but my fellow banana-owners wanted them back. We did eventually, not thanks to me however. It was a funny experience though, especially when we heard afterwards that one of our classmates had “given” a monkey a piece of cake… again not on a voluntary basis.
Written by: Anouk van Gaans
