DAY 3 - PART ONE (MARKETING TEAM) ...

By: Anders Sparlund

Disclaimer: Open Office does not include a spelling interface.

Weather wise, Monday morning was nice and sunny compared to Sunday's intense raining.

Breakfast is served at 8.30 at the The Blue Lagoon hotel. This day, it consisted of bread, omelett and fruits, among these some of the most delicous passion fruits that my eyes ever have witnessed. Being a loyal and faitful customer to the fruit- and vegetable range of Netto Odinsgatan, I must however retreat for the Zanzibarian fruit capabilities. Simply astonishing. Even the banans are kicking here.

At 9, the working day was initiated. For the Marketing Team, Monday was the day for taking first contacts with hotels in the close Paje area, seeing whetheer they were willing of becoming a collaboration partner to the Seaweed Center. The plan was to visit/attack the hotels in teams of two; Viktor/Harish and Sparren/Gamme.

We started the day by practising through the meeting scenario a final time, Sparren/Gamme being the critical hotel owner and Viktor/Harish being social entrepreneurs. After this session and evaluation, we were ready and eager to throw ourselves out in the blue ocean that is the hotel cluster of Paje.

Sitting in the car (driven by a local taxi driver holding valuable knowledge both in Paje geography and zanzibarian folkway) we probably all felt a bit nervous for a potential “belly-flop”. How would the hotel managers react on us showing up from the middle of nowhere? Would we be ignored like teenagers selling Omega 3 pills at Drottningtorget on a cold November morning?

We were about to realise, that our anxious feelings were truly unjustified.

The first hotel was owned by an Austrain, a veteran from the Dubai hotel business. He greeted us with a smile and we sat down. As we pitched the project and its different parts for him, we got to understand that he actually had already bought 100 packages of seaweed soap from the local women. He was very enthusiastic, both over the social sides of the Seaweed Center as well as the positive branding effect that the soap would have on his hotel.

For the marketing team, the rest of the day was a king's tour, confirming our hopes for a genuine demand of the services that the Seaweed Center has to offer. They were ALL interested in taking part in some way! True hapiness! We received all their contact information and a lot of good input on how the collaborations were to be constructed.

Apart from these prosperities, travelling from hotel to hotel the group atmosphere was both merry and pleasant, inviting to worthwile discussions. Harish for example gave some useful input about the tiger/panther situation of India.

At five o'clock, we were back at the “office” (the cousy and elevated bar of the Blue Lagoon Hotel). After creating a database and compiling the information from the day, we met up with the rest of the group in our “casual office lobby”; the Indian Ocean. We actually had the recapitulation out among the seaweed cultivations. Most supersonic.

Now we've had dinner. Everyting is calm. Everything is nice.

Best regards,
Anders Sparlund