SUPPORT SUSTAINABLE TOURISM ON FLORES

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SUPPORT SUSTAINABLE TOURISM ON FLORES

HOME INDUSTRY

This is how the craftsman in my village manually create local products. They need such cutter machines, etc, as shown below for a more quickly working and for better result as well. If you feel called to help this group of small home industry, please make your own little donation for them.

Dear valued Donors,

My name is Peter Liwu and I come from a village in the eastern part of Flores Island, Indonesia. In 2016, after many years of experience in the tourism industry, I started by own local tour operator based in Maumere Flores - Indonesia. My company PT. Alam Komodo Flores tours and Travel was legally established in 2016 with its registered number AHU.0147966.AH.01.11. THN 2016 and with its headquarter office based in Jalan Adisucipto RT 027/RW 008 Kelurahan Waioti Kecamatan Alok Timur - Kabupaten Sikka - Propinsi Nusa Tenggara Timur - Indonesia.

My travel company is an independent travel business started up without a large amount of investment. My business is not profit oriented but I build up my busness to support and empower local people on Flores through tourism. Therefore, the main goal of my business is to support sustainable tourism on Flores and I hope that, in the future, it can help providing sustainable income opportunities for local people in very remote areas of Flores.

Here are some of my programs:

1. Increased Natural and Human Resource

I have visited the villages discussing about my program with village chiefs to improve facilities and infrastructure around the tourist places. I explained that tourists' most needed facility is a good toilet and clean water, mosquito nets, as well as good roads that lead to the tourist site. The locals are very optimistic about tourism and so they would like to provide accommodation for tourists at their homes but they need money to buy nets and beds because most families usually do not have proper beds and no mosquito net at home.

I have been designing a Village-To-Village tours where tourism will give benefit to local communities and my vision of sustainable tourism is that the profit must stay on the Island rather than flowing to external investors that build luxurious hotel accommodations on the island.

2. People, Environment and Culture.

The most important program is in the sector of education. I would like to provide trips to visit schools and arrange meetings where tourists can have the chance to interact directly with local communities and students, there would be discussing about the importance of keeping the environment clean, about illegal hunting, logging and fishing. That wouldn't be like giving a lecture to the locals but more like sharing ideas where not only the villagers learn about respecting the environment but also tourists learn to respect the local people and their culture as well.

4. Job Training

We have done skill training to students of tourism college. The Catholic tourism schooling foundation has an annual program to send their students to be trained at the tour and travel agencies. I did it a year ago at my office and two students had been entrusted to join a touring around Flores. This is when I noticed how important English proficiency is in this field, as the limited English proficiency hindered the students to communicate with the tourists. For this reason, I am planning to give English courses at the tourism college and for that I need some materials such as audio and video recordings and English books for tourism.

4. Problem Solving

As nowadays, tourism on Flores is rapidly increasing, local travel agencies have to face decreasing number of bookings. This is because many well-developed overseas tour agencies mostly search the internet for cheap tours and then they compare it with the official local tour companies on Flores and consequently, pressing our price a lot to make big profit but in the end, their guests have to complain about the uncomfortable service they got during their trip in Flores. To solve this problem, I am planning to spread information to explain travelers not to book tours through illegal tour operators on Flores.

5. Preventing Unemployment

a. In the future, I am expecting to cooperate with local tourism stakeholders such as hotels, other tour agencies and travel associations, restaurants and tour guide associations to recruit young professionals so that they can earn money for their living.

b. Providing opportunities for local communities to create souvenirs or handcrafts, so that the locals can earn money and make their own living from tourism. A group of craftmanship under my supervision is now doing their home industry such as bamboo furniturs and other kinds of souveniers. They need to be supported with the cutter machines, etc as shown on the video above.

Based on the information above, I would like to open an opportunity for those of you who care about tourism on Flores. Any little amounts of your donation is very helpful for me to get out of this difficult moment. I am aiming for 300 Dollar which will already help me a lot to start putting my visions into practice. Your donation would mean a lot for my people on Flores.

Thank you very much in advance.

Sincerely Yours,

Peter Liwu