What do you love most about your job?
Discovery and sharing
Discovery of oneself and others
Discovery of the richness of Madagascar
Sharing and exchange with both the local population and actors, as well as with foreigners (tourists).
The biggest challenge of your job?
As a travel advisor, the search for new products and personalized travel experiences tailored to each client’s expectations.
As a guide, managing constraints/conflicts during the trip.
3 things you have discovered about yourself along your career:
- Ability to manage each expectation and respond to different needs within the group
- Flexibility/adaptation to different local customs and the various characters of guests
- Ease of approaching people, whether they are locals or guests
3 words to describe your vision of travel:
- Discovery
- Meeting and sharing
- Living
3 words to describe Madagascar according to you:
- Diversity
- Endemism
- Eco-region
A destination that you think is underrated in Madagascar but has real potential:
All destinations that aim for immersion in rural life, especially in coastal villages like the fishing villages of Sarodrano in the southwest and the village of Andranokoditra on the east side. It is worth noting that the coastal population of Madagascar and their daily lives are very diverse from one region to another, including their way of life, their canoes, their huts, their skills in handling their canoes, their knowledge of interpreting the character of the water and the direction of the wind… A whole set of knowledge to discover.
Your personal mantra or life philosophy that guides your approach to travel and work?
Walk like a chameleon:
- Observe carefully
- Move slowly but safely
- Avoid backing up but change direction if a threat arises
A moment when you were deeply touched by what you discovered during a trip:
The first time I took the trail from Morondava to Tuléar, I was struck by the beauty of everything I saw crossing this beautiful southwest region: the traditional sailing pirogues and their reflections at sunset, the family gatherings of tattooed baobabs, the vastness of the almost virgin wild beach with its white sand and the color of the sea, both emerald and turquoise, the typical dish of Vezo fishermen based on marguerite fish or Amboramasaky firiry, simple but delicious… All this is engraved in your mind and that’s when you say to yourself: “I want to come back! ! ! yes, of course, I will come back.”
What is unique about GassyTour according to you:
Flexibility, sharing, and listening among teams, including management.
Your vision for the future of travel:
We have natural, cultural, and human riches to develop the tourism sector. However, this is far from sufficient to promote the destination. We still need significant improvements in infrastructure, but above all, we all know that our forests continue to disappear rapidly for various reasons. For this, we still and always need serious implementation of awareness and mobilization projects for each actor, whether in the private or public sector and the local population, regarding the protection of our natural riches. The involvement of the local population in the tourism development of potential sites in their region and in the management of tourist sites would be one of the best mobilizations for them.
