Student Blessing Anichukwu - MSc Tourism, Society and Environment

Which part of your study did you find the most interesting? Which courses did you like best?

"In the beginning, everything was so overwhelming, when I started my masters, because also, maybe because of the covid. So I had to ask repeatedly to our former study advisor Lieke, I had several meetings with her to be sure on the courses to take and the courses to register for. And then I checked our programme study information brochure and the stories, experiences track was really interesting for me, and I felt like it's what I could follow so. The first courses I took was the Concepts and Approaches course which I quite struggled with, for me it was very overwhelming and very complicated at the beginning but after the third week I started getting used to it. The other course that is compulsory to take in the first period is tourism and sustainability. It was also very nice.

In period 2 we took the research methodologies course, which is not really specific to the tourism and experiences track, it's for everybody from this master programme and in period three I did the tourism experiences course with Carolina which is about transformative experiences. It was really, really interesting because it was the first time that we had to do a tour. Even though it was online, because of Covid, we organized a tour and uploaded it on easytravel.com. We planned a tour for tourists or to go to Vancouver in Canada, which was a really practical aspect of this course. Even though it was online, it was really engaging. And I think that course was actually what inspired me to do my internship in the current organization. I'm doing my internship in Better Places because I really became interested in seeing how to modify tourism experiences of tourists in different destinations and see how to create a transformation experience for them, so it's not like you are just traveling to a place and coming back, but having an effect on your life, when you come back to your home.

In period four we had another research methodologies course which is compulsory for everybody in the master programme. It's not really specific to that track and in period five I did the environmental psychology course and Health promotion."

Could you tell us something about your study programme? How have you arranged it to fit your interests?

"Yeah, I must say that the health promotion course was totally different from anything tourism related. It is about how it promotes health and well-being, so it's really nothing to do with tourism, to be honest.

At some point I thought I don't really think I should be in this track, but yeah, I really wanted to stick to the Experiences track, because I already chose it. However, environmental psychology was also really, really aligned to the track. In the course we learned how the environment affects our thinking, how our psychology. It really aligned to the understanding how the environment can also play a part in tourism.

And in Period Six, we did European workshop. I was so happy I didn't go for the ACT because so many people that went for ACT complained that most of the projects didn't really have anything to do with tourism. But the European workshop I did was we did it, consultancy projects for a Dutch National Park. It reminded me of when we did field work in in my bachelors because I did archaeology. It was like a full field work experience. We went to the park for 2 weeks to collect data and we were on a big school bus with everybody from the class, it was like a school trip. We consulted for the park on how recreational practices can steer people to behave more sustainably in the park. We did observations and interviews and shared surveys. We did observations to see how their attitudes and how their behavior can produce unsustainable practices so far. For example, littering the pack and walking in the water protected areas because they also take drinking water for the from the park. We also did an environmental impact assessment. It was really, really practical and I'm very happy I went for it because it's also we also did something like tourist experiences because we also interviewed and shared surveys to the tourists that came to the park, and we were asking them for example: What are your perception and your thoughts and feelings about the park and how does it make you feel when you come here?

Even though it was a bit intensive, it paid off and, in the end, because they take you through this whole training of how to manage your team at the in the first weeks. They really devoted time to training us to work very well in a team like understanding each other in a team because we did the course for 8 weeks. The first two weeks for example thought us something about intercultural communication, managing communication better and how to share opinions and also how to know to deal with the most dominant views in a group and people with their less dominating views, like the people that don't really talk and they're not really expressive. So having a way to manage these different types of people and also giving people space to express themselves and aren't odd, whatnot. It was intensive because I think we never had a free day. But yeah, the rest of the week we always had like from morning to late afternoon. But it paid off in the end because my group scored very highly, we got an 8.5.

I also did a MOS Module, called intercultural communication. It was super interesting because it really helps me to understand how people are very different and how communication matters because we are culturally different. We're culturally coming from different contexts and also different backgrounds. So how you speak to people, how you communicate with people, how you converse with people and how you manage conflicts. So it was also practical, maybe not some a lot to do with tourism, but yeah, it was also interesting to do that course.

I added this course to my motivation letter to my internship company because my company stated that they needed an international perspective, like an intern with an international perspective, because it is a Dutch company, so they have a lot of Dutch employees and interns, so this time around they wanted to also have interns that have an interdisciplinary and inter international perspective to measuring the impacts of travel. The skill intercultural communication helps to develop the skill to know how to communicate better in an intercultural setting."

What thesis did you work on? How did your study programme (trajectory/courses) contribute to this theses?

"I am currently doing my thesis on migration with Meghann even though it's not really about tourist experiences, but I'm studying specifically people that come to visit their friends and their relatives or people that migrate. I want to get their experiences on the role their friends and relatives network play in assisting them when they migrate. I'm also trying to look at the issues of inequality's that they might face, especially people that come from Sub Saharan Africa. Next to that I am also doing my internship now at ‘Better Places’, it's a tourism organization. It is based on a measuring the (negative) impacts of tourism in the destinations, they have over 30 destination. So measuring how traveling produces negative effects on the tourism industry, so it's like abroad, so they have checklists where I score each topic, so for example we also work with airlines, so we have to score how much carbon is emitted yearly because that's a negative impact to the travel industry. I also work with local travel experts or destinations to hear from them about their destinations. We also score if people donate money in national parks when they get to their destination because that money is used to take care of the National Park and also take care of wildlife. So that's like a positive effect. So that's how we score it. So measuring the positive and the negative effects for the company."

What are your plans for the future?

"I'm not really sure because six months ago, I was so sure I was going to do a PhD. But right now I'm not so sure anymore because I feel like maybe I need to get a professional career life, professional experience first. Maybe for the first two years. But if I am to go into building up a career right now and I would want to do something practical with destinations and tourists and improving tourist experiences in destination. I think the trajectory really motivated me and sort of aligned with what I'm doing or send out in my internship and also working in better places. This is the first time I'm working in the tourism company in the tourism sector and it's really interesting to see how practical the work is because we do everything in theory in the study and this time around it's very practical. I think I would want to do something maybe in a travel agency, it's tilting towards career and work first right now."

What do you do besides studying? Do you have a special interest or talent?

"I love traveling and traveling through the Netherlands. I think I've been to every city now. I love meeting up with friends. I love meeting up with new people. I love dancing. I love listening to music. love cooking. I love cooking a lot and I love cleaning, it's weird, but I love cleaning. Sometimes it helps me to think and to also like doing dishes, it's therapeutic for me."

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