Suzan Nievergeld

Wednesday the 5^th of January, 2011: The day that I checked in on a new adventure. Together with my (5 kilo too heavy) suitcase, lots of excitement and a little bit of fear as what to expect, I left my familiar world and took the plane to Cape Town, South Africa. As I fasted my seatbelt and felt the Dutch ground beneath me disappear, I smiled and thought: Suzan, what did you get yourself into? So far away, for such a long time..

No, was not going on holiday. I was on my way to Cape Town for my placement in the third year of my International tourism bachelor study. Like all the students at NHTV, I could choose from practically the whole world.  Yes, a choice of luxury.. but I can tell you that it was a tough one. How do you know what’s the right place for you? During the first semester of the third year, the NHTV starts preparing the students on this tough choice. Lectures are given about the type of destinations, type of companies one can choose from and what one can expect from living in a foreign country for 6 months. And for students who would like to have a little ‘chit-chat’ with 3th and 4^th year students about their placement experiences, NHTV organizes a speed-dating hour. During that speed-date hour, I made my final choice. I wanted to do my internship in Cape Town, no matter what. So as organized and prepared I always am (…), I started applying in October, got my placement in November, booked my ticket in December, and arrived in Cape Town in the beginning of January. I was already in the African mindset; no hurry, no worry.

Was it really that far away, for such a long time? No, because time really does fly when you are having fun. So before I actually realized, I repacked my suitcases (yes, I bought an extra one), checked in on the flight back to Amsterdam and saw how the African ground beneath me slowly disappeared..

Because I love to talk about my time in Cape Town, I immediately said ‘yes’ when the NHTV asked me to represent South Africa during the speed-date hour. Now it was my time to share my experiences, and to give the 3th year students the decisive reason to choose for South Africa. Most NHTV students have the same uncertainties and doubts when it comes to internships, so it is obvious that I was bombarded with all same questions every 10 minutes. I will tell you some, so you can come up with more thoughtful, unexpected questions next time

Why did you choose for South Africa in first place?
I tell you honestly that I do not know why I chose South Africa in first place. I think it was more a feeling. I wanted to go far away from home, but since it was the first time I did leave home for more than 1 month, I did not wanted to end up in a completely different world. So I played on safe and chose for a well developed and well know city. Cape Town is on the other side of the world, but still you don’t have the feeling you are that far away from the western world.

Which company did you work for and why?
I did my placement for an online tour operator, escape4africa.com, and I worked there on the online marketing department. It is a really small company, with only 4 employees but well developed and successful. What I liked about this company on first sight, was the fact that they asked for someone to develop a strategic social media plan. What is better than talking the whole day about twitter, and checking everything on facebook? Exactly! And the fact that the company was located in Cape Town was decisive.

How is the nightlife? (Duh, most important)
The nightlife is a-ma-zing. If you never get further than the Walkabout and Dependance in Breda, or the Philip in Tilburg, a new world opens for you. It looks like Cape Town developed a club or bar for every type of person in the world. Every weekend another party, and during summer time it already starts with a ‘sun-downer’ on the beach or at the swimming pool. And the nicest thing is; for not more than 15 euro you have a really nice evening and a belly full of vodka-lime and for less than 2 euro the taxi will bring you safely home after a wild night.

What will it cost?
Unfortunately, it is not common to get paid during your placement in South Africa. Without any income but student loans and sugar daddy sponsorships, generous grannies or your lovely boyfriend, it can become very expensive. Especially because you want to do everything in the time you are there. No income and so much cool stuff to do is not a very good combination, so I decided to rob my savings account. But every little Rand (the currency in South Africa) I spend was more than worth it. I had the time of my life! Honestly, if you really want to know, don’t go to Cape Town if you don’t have any money to spend. That would be a shame…

Why would you recommend people to go to South Africa?
I fell in love with this country, because the people are amazing, the atmosphere is so relaxed and peaceful and the nature is beautiful. There is no hurry, everyone lives outside (except during the winter months) and life is less materialistic. This country taught me to appreciate all the little things in life en to enjoy it to the fullest. But I think, no matter where you are, a 6 month placement will always be a great experience and a lesson for life. Okay this sounds really philosophic, but just follow your heart when making the choice for a placement-destination. It is the best advice I can give.

If you want to read more about my placement in Cape Town, and if you can read in Dutch, than you can check out www.suzannievergeld.waarbenjij.nu

All third year ITMC students have to choose the courses which they will take in the 5th semester: the specialisation, which will start after the summer holidays. Among the optional courses on offer are the courses ‘Sustainability in Tourism’. Sustainable courses and seminars are fun, not for softies and very relevant. This programme exists of 4 independent but interrelated courses that deal with the topic from different perspectives:

• A corporate perspective: Corporate Social Responsibility as a tool for business innovation
• A management perspective: Managing natural and cultural heritage sites
• A customer perspective: Visitors to natural and cultural heritage sites
• A community perspective: Understanding and dealing with the complexity of community involvement

To provide you with a brief impression of the course ‘The corporate perspective’ and the lecturers involved, have a look at this YouTube clip!

If you have any questions about this or the other Sustainability in Tourism courses, the excursion, or require further info, just let us know!

Every year the 2^nd year ITMC students go on fieldwork to Southeast Asia for 4 weeks as part of their studies. Lidewij Vos was one of the students who went to Bali this year and in this blogpost she describes her experiences.

The ITMC fieldwork to Southeast Asia took 4 weeks in total, including an introduction to Singapore and 2 weeks of research on Bali. The students were divided into groups of 4-6 people and every group was appointed its own research area in the south of Bali. Some of the research areas were: Seminyak, Nusa Dua, Petitinget, Jimbaran and Dreamland.

After the introduction programme by the ITMC staff, the groups headed to their destinations. Their task was to find out what tourism is about in their area. Who are the stakeholders? How did the area develop? And in general why are things the way they are? First impressions are everything and students had to walk around the first days just to have these first impressions. See, smell, feel and experience was the motto. And whether students were in a developed and busy tourism area like Seminyak, or a (still) less developed and more quiet area like Dreamland, everyone had plenty of opportunities to be amazed and astonished during their initial discovery of their area.

So where to start? Who to interview? There were so many questions! But luckily we had meetings with our teachers every few days to discuss our progress. By asking many questions they guided us in the right direction when we got lost.

Although the research areas were different from each other, there were also a few things the same. After a while most groups found out about the Banjars for example, the local Balinese community with a lot of power in their areas. Also the LPD (which is a kind of local bank taking care of all the financial matters in the area) came into view pretty soon. After a while we noticed different things than we would have if we hadn’t done research on it. In short we were already starting to see the destination with different eyes.

Talking to locals was a challenge, especially in the more remote areas like Kedonganan and Dreamland. The level of English spoken by people within the hospitality sector was most of the time good, but as you spoke to locals outside the tourism industry, the language barrier grew taller and taller. Especially since we also did not speak any Bahasa or Balinese! After a while we sort of had an answer to our question but we always kept wondering if the person really understood what we had asked. We had to come up with creative ways to set up the communication in these situations and many groups actually found local people they befriended willing to help translate and get the information they wanted.

Most people were friendly and willing to help after a short explanation about our motives. In some cases people were even driving us around on scooters to show us the most important places and offices and introducing us to people we absolutely had to talk to! The more local contacts we gained the easier it seemed to get to find out what we wanted. But of course we also ran into difficulties doing research in another culture than our own. For example: it could be very frustrating at times that when we would finally have that important meeting with a manager set up, there was a good chance that he’d never show up. Through both positive and negative experiences like these, we quickly found out that doing research in Asia is different than doing research in The Netherlands. Dealing with cultural differences is probably one of the most interesting things we learned in the past few weeks.

After 2 weeks of research , the research area is not “just” a tourism destination anymore, but an area where the streets are familiar and people start to recognise you when you walk around. We got to know all the ins and outs, that an outsider could possibly find out within 2 weeks. The whole experience allowed us to see the destination with different eyes and will probably make us view see destinations with different eyes as well.

Suntec Singapore

The first couple of days of our fieldwork we spend in Singapore where the NHTV arranged a couple of meetings for us. The first day that we arrived in Singapore we could spend freely, which was nice considering our jetlag. We were advised not to sleep immediately because then we would stay in the Dutch rhythm. We were picked up by two busses that brought us to the Penninsula Excelsior Hotel.

The hotel was beautiful and when we entered the lobby you could hear students cheer when they saw the pool. We could check in at 2 p.m. so we had some hours to spend since we arrived in the early morning. We could make use of the pool and gym though and within seconds people were in the pool or went out for food and coffee.

The first meeting was planned on Tuesday morning with Mrs Anjna Vij Nihalani who is the Director Brands & Communications of the Suntec Singapore International Convention & Exhibition Centre. She told us some general information about Suntec and we were allowed to ask question which the students gratefully made use of. We covered topics like the links between big hotels and Suntec but also about the competition of Suntec in the region. It was quite interesting to learn how hotels cooperate with conference centres and how these will benefit to a destination.

Later that afternoon we had a meeting with Mr. Boon Kwee Lim, the Senior Vice President of the Millenium & Copthorne International Ltd. Company. After giving a presentation about the company itself, he gave us some of his views on internet marketing. Here again there popped up many interesting questions with perhaps even more interesting answers.

On Wednesday we started the day with a guided tour through the Singapore City Gallery. We could clearly notice the enthusiasm of our guide and we were not afraid to ask many questions. The Gallery had an amazing scaled model of Singapore which was already large and it was only 2,5% of Singapore. That sure made a big impression on everyone. The guide also told us that because Singapore could not expand outside the country boundaries they were building not only these big skyscrapers but they also are trying to build under the ground. He pointed out that the development of Singapore was their way of attracting and making money but that there was a limit to that expansion.

In the afternoon we were divided into little groups to visit some boutique hotels.  The Naumi Hotel was a small but very luxurious hotel, with a very motivated staff and a personal approach. The staff was eager to tell us more about their unique concept of running a small hotel. Some groups also visited The Fullerton Bay hotel, The New Majestic Hotel and Hotel 1929. We got tours through the hotels and got information from the managers about the hotels.

In general, these meetings and the time that people got to explore the city on their own gave us a good idea of Singapore.

ITMC fieldwork 2012. 1st stop: Singapore.

For the 2^nd year ITMC students, the last few weeks have been all about the fieldwork to Bali. Since the start of the second semester in February all courses have been leading up to the destination analyses that we have to hand in a couple of weeks after getting back to The Netherlands. In these courses we have already been thinking about our research questions, gathering as much secondary information as possible about Bali and more specific about the area that we’ve have been assigned to.

The first shift of students travelled to Singapore at on March 11^th and the second shift will follow only one week after. Teachers of the ITMC department are travelling with us to Bali to give us the extra support we need to do a good destination analyses.

A 12 hour flight took us to Singapore where we spent 3,5 days. During this time we visited some interesting sights and attractions that make Singapore as special as it is. We not only explored the city but we also attended a couple of seminars that gave us a unique look behind the scenes of Singapore. We are glad that the people at for example the Suntec Convention centre and Millennium & Copthorne (international hotel marketing and management organisation) could make time for us!

For shift 1, the fieldwork will continue to Bali today where we will land in Denpasar, Bali. Here again the NHTV arranged some meetings with people that will show us the ins and outs of the tourism sector on Bali.

After 2 days of a guided programme, the students will be off to their research areas where they will collect information that will benefit their destination analyses. This could range from leaflets of the local shop owner to interviews with managers or people on the street. The destination analysis is a 360 degrees view on the tourism market on the micro, meso and macro level.

The last week students can spend their time at a destination of their choice, although within Indonesia. In that week they have to do an assignment as well.

Associate Professor ing. Paul Peeters

On Saturday the 25th of February, associate professor Paul Peeters (CSTT) acted as expert on an item about the sense and non-sense of eco labels in the tourism world in a TV program from VARA called Kassa. He expressed his concern about current labels like Greenkey, Greenglobe and Travelife, who where present in the program.

Also an ITMC alumnus, Elise Allart, who is Manager Sustainable Tourism at TUI Netherlands was asked about TUI’s use of eco labels and the lack of transparancy to the consumer. Take a look at the video from Kassa if you’re interested in eco labels (and understand dutch)!

The part about eco labels starts at 15:25.

Source: NHTV Insight

Colette Sosinski

ITMC alumnus Colette Sosinski shares her story about writing her thesis.

For me it was much harder to find a suitable topic than writing the thesis. I spent many weeks thinking about the “perfect” topic to write about, as I was quite demanding: I wanted my thesis to be challenging, innovative, and interesting to read, not too theoretical. It was also important for me that the outcomes could be applied in real life, that it was somehow relevant to the tourism industry.

I finally found my topic: wildlife tourism in Germany, by analysing which aspects had fascinated me most during my study and by evaluating what I was really good at. After I knew the topic it was quite easy for me to start researching and writing.However, I had difficulties structuring my thesis in the beginning because there was no specific approach or theory which I could apply to my research, as most potential analyses are based on specific regions or cities and mine had to cover a whole country. So it was essential to narrow down my research in another way. I achieved this by reading a lot of literature so I could find out which areas have not been covered yet and which knowledge gaps existed in this field. By means of this I received a better insight into what exactly I wanted to carry out and which aspects my research should cover.

Looking back I can say that writing the thesis was more difficult than I expected, not least because I carried out a lot of primary research, including two online surveys, participant observation and face-to-face interviews with tour participants and tour guides and interviews with tourism, wildlife and conservation experts. In total I conducted 17 expert interviews and 327 demand side interviews and took part in three wildlife-based tours in Germany. Nevertheless, the final mark and the nomination for the ITB Science Award and the Joop Jansen Award compensated for all the effort and time and I can say that writing the thesis was an interesting experience for me – it enabled me to get in contact with many tourism and conservation experts, to improve me research skills, to broaden my knowledge about the complexity of the relationship between tourism and conservation and I gained valuable insights into the possibilities and limitations of domestic wildlife tourism in Germany.

The NHTV University of Applied Sciences Breda organises an orientation day from the 12th until the 14th of January 2012. You have the change to participate in lectures, participate in workshops and meet other international students while exploring the student life in Breda. When you pay the flight, NHTV pays the rest.

For more information contact Esther Peperkamp (ilsinfo@nhtv.nl) for the Academic Bachelor in Leisure and Tessy Verhoeven (verhoeven.m@nhtv.nl) for the Bachelor Programmes in Tourism.

Last Tuesday on the 11^th of October a meeting was held for all the 2^nd year ITMC students concerning the fieldwork period in March and April. During this period students will go abroad for a period of 4 weeks to do research on tourism related aspects in a foreign environment. During this meeting preliminary information was given on different parts of the fieldwork abroad. Topics like the destination, important data, what to do, travel itinerary etc. were discussed.

After a brief introduction on what was expected from the students during this period abroad the different locations were revealed. Students were very enthusiastic when they found out that they will be spending one week in Singapore after which they will be traveling to Bali for the remainder of their fieldwork period. The next fieldwork meeting will be planned for December when more detailed information will be distributed.

Last week all third year ITMC students were invited to join a placement speeddating session at NHTV.

Argentina, Malaysia, United States or Belgium? Or more important a tourist board, consultancy organisation, NGO or touroperator?

All ITMC students have to go abroad for their placement during the second half of the third year. But what can they expect, how is the culture of a country and what are the do’s and don’ts?

No better way to find that out then ask fellow students who have been abroad already! Therefore the placement speeddate was arranged.

About 80 students had a chat with their 4th year colleagues to discuss the placement possibilities. Every 10 minutes they could visit another student to hear his/her experiences.

At the end of the afternoon there were drinks and snacks for the fourth year students in the NHTV bar, where they could finally chat with their fellow students who they had not seen for over six months.