Our speaker was Yusuke Ishihara a Scholarship Student of Rotary International from Japan District 2580.
District 2580 is a district in Tokyo Japan and Yusuke is currently studying at Victoria University doing a Ph.D in Community based Tourism. This is expected to be completed in 2022. He is also studying English and appears to be very well versed in the language.
Yusuke’s interest lies in tourism that provides benefits to the local people and their resources. This relies on the community being able to manage and benefit from tourism including learning their own cultures. The aim of tourism development is to “create better places for people to live in and for people to visit”. This is a saying used around the world under the title Responsible Tourism.
Yusuke’ experience in tourism projects include Africa and South America. In Tanzania he was a tour operator from 2008 to 2012 and found that only a small portion approximately 2% of the tourism dollar went to the District Council for developing the local living conditions. This experience prompted Yusuke to do a Masters in the UK at the Leeds Met Uni from 2012 to 2014 with the thesis Pro-poor Tourism as he wanted to find ways to help the locals in tourist destinations.
Once Yusuke completed his Masters he applied to be a Japanese volunteer in Ecuador in the Amazon region. He worked for the Pastaza Provincial Government Office from 2015 to 2017. During this time Yusuke found that many projects ended in failure largely due to a lack of knowledge, skills, funding and inappropriate support from the Government. However this time was useful in building an appreciation for tourism to have environmental, economic and socio-cultural benefits.
It would seem there is a lot of work to cover in Yusuke’s Ph.D. Yusuke is keen to get involved in our community and meet more people so if anyone has some free time to take Yusuke out and about please make contact.
After Yusuke’s speech we have an intermission prior to the AGM taking place.
Club reporter
Anne Hare
A note message from Yusuke
For the part three months I have spent almost all of my time doing research in the university, and I have not had many chances of interacting with people.
Therefore, I am looking for opportunities in the form of volunteer work or something similar that I can do along my studies (a few hours a day, once or twice a week).
Through this, I would like to meet and interact with people, learn more about New Zealand's cultures and nature, and hopefully improve my English.
Thank you very much. I appreciate your help and support.
Yusuke
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