Mike Heijstek
My name is Mike Heijstek and I am currently in the last stage of my ITMC studies, namely my thesis. I’ve been living in Breda since the first year of my studies at NHTV. I like sports, parties, travelling and currently work for Café Bruxelles.
Exactly one year ago I was in Cape Town for my third year internship. I worked for a travel centre located in the main street of Cape Town city centre. This company, called The Long Street Travel Centre, wished to benefit from the coming World Cup Football which is hosted in South Africa and Cape Town. It was my job to advice the company about how to benefit optimally from the event. I had four main tasks:
- Customer/ market research: Who is coming to the world cup? What people, where do they stay, how much money do they spend, where are they interested in? Etc.
- Find out what products were popular during previous World Cups. In short: how money was made.
- What was the city Cape Town as well as the country South Africa doing in order to host the event perfectly? This included aspects such as infrastructure, accommodation and transportation. However; I was also in contact with the local government, the FIFA, the stadium director, television channels and the popular V&A Waterfront manager. Basically, all facets of importance.
- The most important task: How can the previous three points be combined, together with the unique circumstances of Cape Town and South Africa to deliver a ‘custom made’ plan. It had to contain a marketing strategy about how the company could benefit from the event as well as product recommendations had to be included.
I had to think about new products that could benefit the company. The current products were not of importance, however, the central location of the company was.
After weeks of (field) research, I started on the report. It took me about five months to complete the work properly; including all the requirements. Most facets of marketing were included.
When I was back in the Netherlands after my internship had ended, I received a message via Facebook from a worldwide operating German Publishing company named LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing. They proposed to publish the report worldwide. They found a link in the Library of Africa (no idea how it got there!) and were interested. Of course I sent my work and within a week I got positive response!
Mike's book
“Dear Mike,
Thank you for submitting your manuscript. We strongly believe that there
is a market for your work, so I am happy to inform you that we would
publish it in the form of a monograph under the brand, LAP Lambert
Academic Publishing.”
I changed the report a little to make it more formal and I designed the cover of the book, including information about
myself and a picture. That feels quite good I can tell you!
Two weeks later: there it was! My first book published worldwide. It is available online, however also in book stores and libraries. According to LAP, a couple of thousand people should be interested; I am obviously very excited about that!
It feels like an appreciation of all the work and effort I put in the report. At least I know it was not a waste of time. Besides, I had the time of my life in Cape Town! As they would say in Zuid-Afrikaans: ‘Ek ben ampt!’
Are you interested in Mike’s story and want to get in touch? Just drop us a line and we’ll put you in touch!
