After the useful rehearsals of the day before, we were ready (hopefully) for the actual stakeholder presentations. Everybody put on their formal clothes again for the last time this International Field Project. I felt quite a bit overdressed when we used the local and cheap bemos (public transport) to drive us to the vocational school of tourism in Labuan Bajo. Every group invited a number of people who had been important to their research, to attend the presentations. And many students of the vocational school were also present. After some introductory talks by Swisscontact, the vocational school SMK Labuan Bajo, and IFP coordinator Harald Buijtendijk, it was our turn to present our research and findings!
As I had never done a presentation with a translator and into a microphone before, I got a bit worried beforehand. After an awkward start, because I wasn’t sure when to pause to let the translator translate, it turned out to be fine and quite easy. Probably, the translator had a more difficult job than me as she had to remember what I had said and quickly translate it. Afterwards, I was quite happy with the presentation and it was nice to show to the local stakeholders, students and our fellow classmates what we had accomplished in these past two weeks of research.
To gain deeper insight in the opinions and thoughts of the stakeholders about our research findings, the presentations were followed by a round of discussions. The audience including the students were divided according to the four groups of our research; 1) Island-Based Wildlife, Adventure & Nature Tours, 2) Fresh Food in Restaurants, 3) Boat Trips, Live Aboard & Dive Operators, 4) Cultural Heritage & Event Tours. Unfortunately, not many of the stakeholders we invited were present. But we were happy with the many students who could complete the group. Not all of them could speak English very well, but one tour operator was willing to translate. Even though we could therefore not understand everything of the discussions they had, they came up with interesting solutions to problems we had formulated and it was nice to see how motivated they were.
When the final group pictures and “thank you’s” were done, we had the afternoon off to spend on souvenir shopping and food. In the evening, Harald and Rico had arranged a BBQ on the beach of their hotel as a closing off of our research on Flores. We played a fun match of beach volleyball during sunset and enjoyed barbecued fish next to the waterfront. The Indonesian hotel staff checked out our BSc Tourism boys and concluded that Tjeerd was the hottest one. This could be due to the fact that he didn’t have a tan yet. Later on, we also tried some local fruits and arak drinks next to a campfire. Especially the arak was popular. Some even went for the pure arak!
Oh and by the way, for the people who love Oreo cookies… here in Indonesia they only cost 50 cents per package and come in too many flavours. After extensive research and a lot of cookies later, we have decided that coconut Oreos are the best! 🙂
Written by: Anouk van Gaans
