In light of the global coronavirus pandemic and border closures, Timor-Leste is unexpectedly experiencing a bump in people sharing and searching for fresh local destinations under the Ha’u-Nia Timor-Leste domestic tourism promotion campaign. As people are becoming frustrated and bored, they’re looking through social media to see places that can reignite the spirit of travel, and for some – ignite it.
Through a question and answer format, Agora Food Studio takes a look at how the next generation of young tourism champions are unlocking each other’s potential. Agora Food Studio has been working with a range of partners throughout 2020 using two interesting pedagogical practices: peer-to-peer coaching, and building connections and relationships through a “community of practice”.
Why Is Domestic Tourism Important?
Domestic tourism accounted for 73% of total Travel and Tourism spending globally in 2018, according to research by the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC). Domestic tourists cannot be ignored; clearly they are an important driver of the overall tourism sector. The activities of domestic tourists create economic importance as the money spent on domestic tourism feeds back into the country’s economy, creating a multiplier effect that can grow a more viable and prosperous economy.
COVID-19 has been the single greatest disruption to the global tourism industry. All countries are facing the same threat to the survival of their tourism sector. With no international tourists, governments are pivoting towards boosting domestic tourism — Australia and New Zealand provide excellent examples of this.
Timor-Leste can also do this, but the potential of domestic tourism is too often ignored. Yet it exists and continues to grow quietly, organically. A younger generation is increasingly posting domestic travel adventures, including:
- Camping enthusiasts and climbers ascending Mount Ramelau for Loron Nain Feto Ramelau in October
- Hardcore motorbike explorers travelling the island
- Yoga practitioners meditating on Atauro or Jaco island, or among coffee forests in Letefoho
- Smartphone photographers visiting the remote beaches of Atekru
- Day-travellers heading to Laletek Nanis Domin for views over Dili
- Visitors to Atauro’s Beloi Saturday markets for beach street-food lunch and fresh-harvested seaweed
Surviving COVID-19 as a Tourism Business
Since COVID hit, Timor-Leste entered a lockdown from March 2020, with the government instating States of Emergency on a month-by-month basis. It has been a tough year. More than a few businesses have closed their doors completely, some of which had been institutions with an incredible legacy in Timor-Leste’s tourism sector.
Agora Food Studio had to change direction completely. When the economy almost stopped, they had to stop too — no income for three months. They were lucky to have a supportive landlord. The team used the time to breathe, take stock, and find ways to remain creative and motivated.
Most team members travelled back to their childhood homes, taking inspiring photos and videos about their traditional food and stories. Sharing home-cooked meals with each other became the basis for solving an immediate business problem: moving swiftly to depend less on à-la-carte service and more on healthy catering and selling Timorese food and drink products through supermarkets, reflecting the community’s preference to eat at home.
For all businesses, cashflow is everything. No cashflow equals no business. Tourism businesses cannot wait for international tourists to arrive in an unknown number of years. With support from USAID’s Tourism For All Project, Agora was able to adapt its 2020 business plan to focus on up-skilling the team and other small tourism businesses and entrepreneurs, and on strengthening relationships within the community.
Embracing Peer-to-Peer Coaching
The early period revealed opportunities — particularly the latent energy in the young generation. The world was also moving online faster than ever, opening the door to digital coaching courses with people from different countries. Three team members completed an international coaching course, learning how to listen deeply and coach the best out of others.
One of those young leaders, Paula Torres, transitioned from coachee to coach in the area of digital marketing. Building on this momentum, Agora began working with Tourism Champions award winners:
- Elfan Dacosva — Timor Fixer
- Anas Madeira — Timor Motorbike Rentals and Tours / Timor Unearthed
What Is a Coaching Approach and Why Is It Important?
Coaching is all about listening. Coaches ask questions that guide a person to better understand who they are and to develop their ability to sense and respond to changing circumstances in order to achieve what they want.
One of the most important questions the group asked each other was:
“If you were a tourist in Timor-Leste, what would you want to experience?”
What Did the Coaching Reveal About Domestic Tourism?
1. Domestic tourism already exists and is growing. It has been growing organically over the last few years and is being made more visible through the #hauniatimorleste campaign.
2. A digitally-savvy younger generation wants to explore their own country. Many young Timorese are in the early stages of being a tourist. Harnessing this energy through a community of practice — for example, bringing guesthouse cooks to Dili to experience being a tourist and then transferring that back to their home villages — can accelerate growth.
“This is really one of the most important learnings for young generation like us for our future business. Because through sharing story and using social media the world will know our business. If possible, keep continuing with this activity to help promote Timorese Tourism.” — Paula Torres
3. Framing is key: everyone can be a tourist. Because of language, the framing has long been that tourists = foreigners. Agora is working hard with tourism champions to change this.
“Everybody was shocked to hear that we can be tourists. We thought that tourists are only foreigners. But we now know about domestic tourism. That as young generation, we need to know our own country and promote what we love — this is the best starting point for growing tourism.” — Paula Torres
“The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.” — G.K. Chesterton
What Did the Coaching Reveal About Personal Growth?
“I have learned about how to be more organised and how to prepare (making plan A and plan B for example); how to be active, to listen, have fun and consider one another and co-ordinate with team and participants, take note of interesting ideas and questions from participants.” — Paula Torres
“I learned that each coaching interaction cannot be replicated — every coaching session must be curated and created from scratch. Duplication does not work and therefore I am learning the art of bringing uniqueness to each session.” — Maeve O’Brien
Novel Techniques for Building a Tourism Community of Practice
A community of practice is a “group of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do, and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.” This definition reflects the fundamentally social nature of human learning.
Sparking Joy
The process of learning needs to spark creative joy because this is when genuine knowledge transmission takes place. During a Digital Marketing Exchange held in September, the focus was on having fun, being curious, and acknowledging that only by making mistakes can you take better photographs or write better social media posts.
Rather than teachers and passive students, the approach uses as many facilitators as possible to create spaces for people to share their stories — both as tourism workers and as tourists. After just one day of the exchange, participants were able to take more compelling smartphone photos for social media.
Choreographing Collaboration
Bringing people together creates windows into each other’s businesses from which potential future collaborations may emerge. During the development of COVID-safe video content for tourism and hospitality businesses, young Timorese from four organisations came together:
- Timor Lodge
- Linivon Restaurant
- Timor Fixer
- Agora Food Studio
Together with filmmakers Pixelasia, they not only starred in the videos but contributed to the scripts and got to know each other’s businesses over a full day of filming.
Eating and Drinking Coffee Together
Sitting down over a shared meal with a Timorese flavour helps bind the community. Food served on shared plates, people seated facing each other, upbeat music, colourful décor, and cheery service all create a safe space for people to share their stories.
What Has Given the Coaches the Most Joy?
“I meet different people from different places like Centro Sover-Botir Matak, Timor Lodge Resort, Hato-Builiko Guesthouse and Timor Adventures. I can practice more listening and learn from them as well. They really want to learn and it’s a really new thing for some of them, but we got feedback that most of them are excited to be part of this. I feel thankful to have coaching with Mana Maeve about being a facilitator, because she really understands, is open minded, professional and she guides me step-by-step to make sure participants understand.” — Paula Torres, Agora Food Studio
“My interaction with Paula has been the best part of the coaching and has given me the most joy. Paula is a natural coach and teacher. It was a pleasure to work with her and witness her appetite for learning and her ability to apply tips and techniques she acquired during our sessions. Not only did she pick up these tips easily, she cleverly adapted them to bring out the best in her coaching classes with her students.” — Coach Maeve O’Brien, Mascontour
What Did the Coaches Learn About Others?
“They like to work in groups, they need to have fun, they don’t want only one person to talk until the class is finished, and they also want to contribute themselves to the knowledge in the room.” — Paula Torres, Agora Food Studio
“Not to force them into the coaching sessions and to let go if they really do not see the benefit. They enjoy the level playing field and need to be reminded often that I am not a teacher.” — Coach Maeve O’Brien, Mascontour
“Normally people want somebody else to fix their problems but they don’t realise that it is better for them to seek a coach with experience, who can help them to resolve the problem for themselves. During the coaching course I learned that it is not always good just to help people, without giving them the opportunity to help themselves first.” — Elfan Dacosta, Timor Fixer
Source: Questions and answers provided by Agora Food Studio’s Mark Peter Notaras and Paula Torres, Mascontour’s Maeve O’Brien, and Timor Fixer’s Elfan Dacosva.