Truth Behind Travel Podcast

The Truth Behind Traveling to Madagascar with Sonja Gottlebe

• Dolores Semeraro • Season 4 • Episode 79

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Dolores Semeraro interviews Sonja Gottlebe Sustainable Tourism Advocate | Eco-Lodge Pioneer of Madagascar. 

sonja is a champion of Sustainable Tourism in Madagascar, with over three decades of pioneering work in the tourism industry. 

During this episode, Sonja highlights the country's resilience despite crises but noted the severe impact of COVID-19, with tourist numbers plummeting from 400,000 in 2019 to 150,000 in 2024. Madagascar's lack of a national airline and poor infrastructure hinder tourism but Sonja emphasized the need for a comprehensive development strategy, including education, infrastructure, and sustainable practices. 


Also on the episode

  • Sonia Gottlebe's Background and Early Tourism Experience
  • Current State of Tourism in Madagascar
  • Challenges and Opportunities in Madagascar's Tourism Sector
  • Strategies for Tourism Development in Madagascar
  • Impact of Poverty and Politics on Tourism
  • Local Talents and Community Involvement
  • Connectivity and Tourism Sustainability
  • Perception and Marketing of Madagascar
  • Responsible Tourism Practices
  • Future of Tourism in Madagascar



Dolores Semeraro is a sought-after international tourism keynote speaker and sustainable tourism marketing professional.

Dolores actively works in the tourism and travel conference space as a keynote speaker and moderator, gracing the stages of international tourism summits and trade shows.

As a professional keynote speaker, Dolores’ speaking topics encompass sustainable digital marketing for the tourism industry, how to establish digital mastery, and learn how to identify today’s traveler’s needs.

During the pandemic, Dolores launched her podcast show named ‘Truth Behind Travel Podcast’ where she regularly interviews tourism and travel industry leaders and representatives on how to rebuild the future of travel.

In the recent years, Dolores has continued to work and live on beautiful islands such as Mauritius, where she started her tourism and hospitality marketing consultancy working closely with the Mauritian luxury hospitality sector as corporate trainer.

According to her international clients, Dolores is a gifted trainer and intuitive workshop facilitator.

She is now based in Europe where she actively works as keynote speaker and corporate trainer in the tourism industry.

www.doloressemeraro.com

dolores@doloressemeraro.com

Instagram @dolores_semeraro

LinkedIn @dolores.sem

Dolores Semeraro:

Welcome back to the show. Welcome Sonia. I'm so happy to have you here.

Sonja Gottlebe:

Hello, Dolores, how are you?

Dolores Semeraro:

I'm fine, and you're connecting from a very, very special place today.

Sonja Gottlebe:

Yes, I am on the fourth biggest island of the world, Madagascar.

Dolores Semeraro:

I never made it to visit Madagascar, so I guess I said to you, it's one of my biggest regrets. So I'm really happy to have you on the show, because I believe there's so much that needs to be highlighted about Madagascar, and I wanted to have your voice on the podcast as a woman in travel and as an expert of Madagascar, and to leave the podcast listeners today with a bigger, deeper and awareness of what the country is today, what the tourism looks like, what tourism could look like ideally, and really your opinion about how, how is it going? How, what's what are the opportunities, what are the challenges today in the country? So tell us a little bit about your journey to begin with.

Sonja Gottlebe:

Thank you, Dolores. I arrived in Madagascar with my parents as a kid, and I'm German born, but I sound French. I know it's because when we arrived in Madagascar, there was no German school available. In fact, there are no Germans in Madagascar. We're about 200 and I started working in tourism very, very soon, because I didn't study in Europe. And so I started as a German speaking tour guide. I was 18 years old. Let's say I started much earlier, because as a child with my parents, I've been sailing two years around Madagascar on a sailing boat. And my father is a botanist, so we spend lots of time on my holiday in in the bush somewhere, collecting plants or analyzing animals. By having all these knowledge given by my parents about traveling Madagascar and biodiversity, it was pretty easy for me to become a tour guide, because at those time in the 90s, Madagascar was not a touristic country. It was closed. It was communist. It was very difficult to fly to Madagascar. You had to fly through Moscow on a lot, and it took two days, and it was very expensive. And the country was, well, I was not open to tourism. Yes, I'm considered like, like a kind of pioneer. I'm feeling older when the people say that. But in fact, yes, I've been working over 33 years now in tourism here.

Dolores Semeraro:

How does the tourism scenario of the country looks and feels like nowadays?

Sonja Gottlebe:

The scenario is, is not so it's not so good. Honestly, it has been better in the past 20 years. Madagascar is Well, normally, it's a very resilient destination, because we are used to crisis of all kinds political turnouts and epidemic like cholera or any kind of fear. We're used to that. But this COVID crisis was different, because as an island, we've been closing the borders for two years and a half, so without flights. So that was really long, and changed many things in this country. I'm not such a big fan of statistics, but I think it's important to talk about this because Madagascar is a destination that didn't recover since, I mean, not we didn't recover the figures from 2019, yet, in all the recent fact sheets, you know, from these huge organizations like World Travel and Tourism Council or even our own Tourism Board of Madagascar, they declared that, well, in 2019 we used to have about, we were very close to 400,000 tourists. We had about 375,000 tourists in Madagascar. That was, is still the best year ever. In this year, in 2424 we had from January to August. So I don't think there's a big change now, until December, about 150,000 so if you see the size of this island, I mean, it is the fourth biggest island of the world. It's one, 1.5 bigger than France, just to give you a size of a country you can compare to. And we have 20, 28 million habitants. So we are very, very far from over tourism. There's no risk at all about over tourism. We just want tourism. So you see the the scenario is not, not very well, not very positive. There are many external reasons, like, for example, they are flight connections, but they are the flight connections are not done by we don't have any National Career airline anymore. We only do with Madagascar airlines. We only do domestic flights, which means we depend on the decisions these big airlines, the big players, are making. So actually, the biggest players are Ethiopian and Kenya Airways, Turkish Airlines, Emirates. Yes, and at last Air France. So we have connected to South Africa, for example. What we get very, very little South Africans, mostly on business trips. So that means, in the scenario is a bit like I would say that the feeling that there are many trains passing, passing Madagascar, and we do not go on. We do not jump on those trains. One of the biggest train we missed was almost, I think, about 15 years ago, we had this movie from Hollywood, Madagascar, and it was terrible. We never got $1 for that. And we did not get more tourists from that movie for a simple reason, or it was not a touristic commercial. It was, it was a comic for for children, right? The government here is so naive. They didn't even realize that you cannot use your country's name for a film without getting compensation. This film did much harm to us, because I had to say on tourism show that I'm really from Madagascar, because it's a real country. People thought it's not a real country. It's a movie. Tourism has the lowest budget from given by government as well. There's no development scenario and no no real interest in tourism in the country. I often say that most of Malagasy people do yet not understand what tourism is.

Dolores Semeraro:

If you look at the destinations across the Indian Oceans that are very well developed in tourism, they are always looking into new strategies and what can be done to improve, to make better tourism, to make tourism more accessible to a diverse type of travelers when it comes to a developing country like Madagascar, what? What do we need to keep in mind when we strategize about tourism development,

Sonja Gottlebe:

it's a very good question nowadays, because we just learned this month that Madagascar is now poorest country of the world with Somalia. And Somalia had a civil war we hadn't, which is really something you have to consider when you talk about any kind of economic development. It's really completely unfair, because it's a rich country by itself, I mean Madagascar, as I mentioned, is over 590 590,000 square kilometers big, and we have over 2000 kilometers of beach, coasts and little islands and everything like like gemstones and vanilla and mining activities, over 78% of the population of Madagascar are self sufficient. They grow. Everything grows here because it's like a huge it's a continent island. But we don't have any earthquakes, or we don't have any tsunamis by chance. So there are lots of opportunities that they're just laid down there because of poor politics. The Malagasy population is a very talented population as well, having they have lots of skills in languages, so very good in German, for example. Of course, it's a very young country as well. And having lots of children per family, and they as as soon as they can can access to education, they're doing well. So you see the strategy, if you're talking about development strategy, I would really first of all talk about we should have a general strategy for the whole country, because you cannot isolate tourism from the others, because tourism is transversal. So we can only do tourism if we have security, we have educated human resources, if we have road systems, if we have planes, if we have something to eat, electricity and water, for example, there there's much more. But as we all know, it's a true it's a transversal activity. So the whole country is as a as the poorest country of the world. Now, the whole country is not set for that. Talking about developing plans is a bit where we should talk about that, but it should be integrated in, in good governance and in, in a real plan for megafta. But like very often in African countries, they are unstable, and when so every, let's say every four or five years where we get a new government, even without election, sometimes, and they tend to forget any all the work that has been done before. What I learned from this experience is that there are now other there are new key components we should consider. It's also because we, 20 years ago, we didn't talk so much about environment and climate change. It was, it was not such a topic. It was more about eco something, but not sustainable tourism. For the moment, in Madagascar, I would say we need an institutional framework, first, a real institutional framework to coordinate everything that needs. Be done to develop tourism in such country. So we need electricity and water supply. We don't have, actually, in most of places, hotels, everyone, even travel agencies. They are self sufficient in water and electricity because we don't get enough from from the government. So we have all solar power, and we have huge water tanks on our roofs, even at home. So imagine for hotels how difficult this can be, because they are not ecologists. They are in the city. In tanarivo is 4 million big city, and you have huge hotels, while huge, I mean, like 100 rooms is already huge for Madagascar, but in the you have conference rooms, and who need big generators, at least to get to get light during a conference, then we need roads. The world system is terrible. And in rainy season, which starts now, the rainy season starts in December until March, you have about three or four national parks, we who are UNESCO World Heritage Sites, very, very iconic places like the bowba trees behind me this place, you cannot go there by car, because the the road system is completely down and there are no bridges. And so you cannot, you cannot even sell Madagascar in the rainy season. The second key component be beside, I mean, this institutional framework is to teach tourism, because the population really needs to understand the population. I mean not, not stakeholders, because stakeholders in tourism want tourism, it's their job. But what about these small communities on islands, the fishermen villages? What about any kind of people who live near to the nature, natural conservancies, for example, because they're not allowed to get in anymore. So there's a big lack of this inclusive discussions that is going on for years and years. It's partly it's my personal analysis, and I'm not always popular by saying this, but for me, it's very often a mistake that has been implemented by international organizations by donors, because they Madagascar is a big playground for donors, because we need, I really say a playground because we're giving jobs to hundreds of consultants who pretend helping us to prevent Madagascar's biodiversity destruction. But did they ever really look for how long they have been here and how much money they spent, and what is the result? It cannot be only tourism who can, who can solve this, because we have so very little, very, very little. I mean, you see the figures, less than 200,000 tourists a year cannot pay enough entrance fees, for example, in national parks to save them. There must be other solutions. It's not my job as a consultant in sustainable tourism to say that Madagascar is really a part because here, it's not the tourist that is a danger for the environment. It's the poverty. Poverty and the poor politics are the danger, because the tourists coming, actually to Madagascar, really, nature lovers. It's such a special destination, they come. It's a long flight for most of them, because from Europe, from Paris, for example, it's 11 hours from United States, it's it's twice, it's twice as much because they are not direct flights from the States. You have to fly to South Africa first, so you do not decide Madagascar for a weekend. So these programs should first of all, really make sure that that the natural environment of Madagascar, which is really the basis of our business here, it's not monuments or museums or casinos or the only big attraction that is unique to Madagascar is its biodiversity. That's what we should preserve the most. The local population has not been included from the start. We start to we start to think differently now, but it's a bit late, because I know several places where tourism was completely misunderstood. So the local people just thought, well, if White people come, they bring money. You know, there's the they are working wallets, and I take the money the most I can from them, but with without any idea why a tourist comes to his place, what he wants to see. And so it was very badly prepared.

Dolores Semeraro:

The people working in tourism are not having it easy. The tourism arrivals are literally barely covering the minimum viable offerings that that are there. And I really wonder, I mean, how, how do you how do they do it? Like. How do they even survive with with such a big destination, so diverse, north to south, coastal to inland, and having so very little arrivals, we always talk about involving the local community, creating a circular economy. Re re proposing the wealth generated by tourism. I like your example of, you know, moving wallet when tourists come to Madagascar. I think it's quite a picture, and it is true, because by the sincerity and genuineity of people, it's without a background knowledge of what tourism represents for the growth of the country and the community benefits like that money that these walking wallets are bringing in are not just there to to leave today for tomorrow, but they can be used to build something that has a longer impact, that can really create a legacy and The local talents that really are part of this enduring, you know, resilience and strength to really repurpose tourism, to rebuild it, if not to build it from scratch. Really, it's not even a question of rebuilding, because it sounds like there's a lot that needs to be built to begin with. What do you think are the most underrated talents were, were, what are the hidden talents, so to speak, of the Malagasy communities, of the local people that could really be brought up to light and become a prime feature of the promotion of the destination. Because I see Madagascar being promoted in every major outlet. We talk about WTM in London, we talk about ITB in Berlin, ATM, there is Madagascar is always there, promoting the destination. But are they promoting the people?

Sonja Gottlebe:

The malagasy have a complex. They have an identity problem, a real, huge identity problem, which explains why they they so they're very calm people. There are many under underestimate, I like the word underestimated talents and unheard voices in the small jobs of our tourism supply chain. Many, and as they many of them don't get access to good hotel schools for many reasons. They in my hotels, I had about 40% of illiterate people, illiterate and alphabetic adults. So they were very able to work as as a well tour guide is very we were always in in forest or in mountains, so most of my activities were, was about hiking or lemur spotting or bird watching, for example. And you could give them, I gave them books. But if they can read, they can at least learn themselves for the book. But if they cannot read, you need to train them in different way. So, for example, in in one of my hotels, we did a very basic we find, try to find out, how can we train these adults that is also part of community based tourism, right? And I found out, I was very often surprised by some hidden talents in my own teams, because they just, well, if you they are looking for a job. So they come and ask for a job. If they ask you, they tell you, do you need some someone for the beach? I said, Yes, a beach cleaner. Okay, you can clean the beach. And I found out six months later that the guy was able to skip a boat. Said, Why don't? Why didn't you ask me. Well, I didn't dare to tell you that I know to drive your boat, see, and so I might. I found out that it's very important to interact with these people the most you can, because they are they are shy, and it's not in their culture to to be intrusive. Intrusive. They're not. They don't. They didn't get this Asian thing. They are not like this, this Asian thing to work hard and whatever. Well, they take life is easy here, right? We have Kaido. It's Mura. Mura, which means slowly, slowly. So slow. Life has always been existing here. If you work too much, you die soon. I mean, this is something we should learn from them. That's why I told you, tourism is very often not understood. It's they're not against tourism. They're not tourists. But it needs to be. There's a huge gap. I mean, there are touristic places in the island where you have already lots of tourism development like nocibi, north of malagadska, a small island. Nosibi is well known for over 30 years, and they get about 60% of tourism arrivals. So it's like, you see they're really, they're all, I would say, self. How do you say self made, self made talents? Yeah, the pity is that they don't get any financial support to launch small, you know, they could launch a small to operate a company, or maybe to have a loan at the bank and buy bikes for biking that they don't they don't even try this, because the bank system is not for is not for them.

Dolores Semeraro:

the story that comes to my mind is the dog that bites his tail and they can't develop because the system does not support that's not even a huge development, even the smallest step for them to begin with, you touched upon something very important earlier, that is the connectivity. But one of the realities that I personally came across is by being in a camper van on the island of Crete in Greece, is that seasonal flights really have a an impact on how the destination sustained that that tourism generated wealth, meaning no flights, no tourists, the local businesses are ready to completely shut down until next year comes March or April, until the flights start again and the tourist comes to the destination. So Madagascar has a connectivity issue, starting from the very baseline of not having a national airline. Where is the fine line? So no flights, no tourism, no tourism, no tourism, generated opportunities and wealth and development, but flights equal tourism equal more emission, more planes. Where is the fine line for Madagascar?

Sonja Gottlebe:

I would say it's just like what we say. Na, it's not applicable in Madagascar. We just need a little bit tourism. Please. Nobody will swim to Madagascar. I've seen that in not long ago, about 60 years ago, you use the boat from France to Madagascar. It took five weeks, one way, five weeks. So on these fantastic boats, like, not like Titanic, but not so bad. And they came down from Marseille. They left from Le Havre, if it was Northern France or Marseille from the Mediterranean, and went the took the Suez Canal and came down to Madagascar. This was the first natural way to come to Madagascar, because we are an island in the Indian Ocean on all islands around right, like Mauritius was, it was the same, mostly the same boat then, then later on, when the first flights started, it took 12 days. The first direct flight. They called it a direct flight from Paris to Madagascar took 12 days. That was sensation. And in and I did this trip myself from Madagascar up to North. I did it in five days in a small aircraft. It was an adventure as well. But you cannot do this anymore, because most of places we stopped over on war is war everywhere in Africa, like Somalia, Ethiopia, there are many dangerous places. And so it's not and it, of course, it's also expensive. So we use flights where we don't. We these charter flights are very nothing to do with EasyJet or it's not that it's charter flight, but it stays expensive for sure. We will never get any hydrogen planes flying to Madagascar because it's too far. Because these new generation of aircrafts, they can only fly as as far as I heard, two or 3000 kilometers, those aircrafts flying to Madagascar, yet are for sure, the old, the old, unresponsible aircraft for sure, and it's there's no solution until Madagascar is shifting apart from the Gondwanaland. So we're not getting closer to the continent for a long time, but the way to be more responsible, that's what I always told my clients, is why you have to stay longer? Madagascar is most of our stays. The length of the stays here are about two to three weeks, if you look in any brochure, if you benchmark what they sell in Germany, or whatever, Madagascar is minimum two weeks, three weeks, up to one month, which is very good for Madagascar, because this is also, we didn't invent slow tourism. It happens because of the size. So the other companies coming are great because they are opening market, new markets and opportunities for new source markets. There are no direct flights from from such a distance. I mean, from Paris, we have only Air Force flights. And you're, you know what's funny, it's that Madagascar is, we are officially Net Zero. Zero emission. This country has its net zero emissions. And, for example, the Air Force foundation is buying carbon. Is buying his carbon footprint is compensating in Madagascar, we are also a playground for the all these Well, it's another discussion. I don't think we should go into that, but there are other countries playing also with Madagascar on that on that field, I mean, on that playground that they buy carbon in Madagascar. It can be mangrove or it can be coral reefs, or it can be just like, like Forest.

Dolores Semeraro:

Well, there's a, that's the thing. It's a there's a perception of mass of Madagascar around the world, and there is a strategic sort of use of that image from people outside, into, you know, towards the destinations. It's almost as to me, it seems like the Madagascar tourism does not really own his own narrative at the moment, and it's really subjected to what other tourism operators need to develop around it or aim to. And we had a conversation you and I about the different, the really, really diverse type of tourism that can be highlighted in Madagascar is not just one type. Like, for example, you go to Maldives, and it's about the beach and the tourism related to the underwater, the diving and the relaxation, the luxury, luxury experience. Or let's say, every Indian Ocean destination, just to remain in the neighborhood, has his own positioning. And when I think of Madagascar as a person that have been, you know, so close by for so long, but yet never visited, to me, it speaks of, you know, wilderness, of remoteness, of perhaps not a comfortable holiday, but certainly an adventurous one, a Safari on so many level, perhaps, and biodiversity, marine life, wildlife, bird life, as you mentioned, it's if The perception of the destination could be helped now, knowing that we are going to bring this podcast out, the conversation is going to hopefully start and inspire many others to dig in a little deeper. What is it about Madagascar that I didn't know? What is it that I know and now I know better, for example, what is it that I thought it was true and it isn't so I hope that this podcast episode will bring that sort of value and impressions, you know, and truth forward. But in your opinion, if you were looking at at the the best type of tourism that could be developed for the destination and really could be put forward, that the type of tourism, in terms of tourism offerings, but also in terms of tourists that could really bring the most value for the longest term. What would that be? There are lots of examples that inspire me nearby, because I don't use examples that wouldn't work here, but I mean inspired by South Africa, by Botswana. Who, well, Botswana is really a bit special because it's a small country, and they, they have diamonds, diamonds as well, and lots of wealth. But they, they are developing high end luxury tourism, expensive tourism, because they say we are too small to get more tourists, so we need to control a number of tourists. And they also visit like these iconic natural sites, like the Okavango Delta, for example. And you cannot expand this. And they're also local communities in conflict, sometimes with these visitors. So they are trying to they they're doing responsible tourism development for real. And their motto, their credo, is high value, low impact. So I think looking at our figures as Madagascar will never get lots of foreign investment and what for, I mean, to build lots of hotels and to get more airlines and to get more tourists. This is what, unfortunately, many governments here, many ministers in Madagascar, declared, but Well, unfortunately, they never stay long enough to do any harm, but they so because it's if you, if you declare that you don't want more tourists, but that you want to improve that, that you want to improve the quality. I think we should go that way, like Botswana, and also like South Africa, the type of tourism in. Madagascar has always been, well, nature based adventures. We are, I used to say we are a big niche of niche tourism, because we have lots of niches, and the whole country seems to be a niche, finally and but I think we shouldn't sell Madagascar. It shouldn't be for sale, you know, in supermarkets to become like a cheap product with cheap flights and cheap packages, because the mentioned to the population is not ready for tourism in many places. So if you have uneducated travelers who are existing, come to Madagascar without knowing how to behave, and nobody will tell them how to behave because the government is not doing it its job, then you might have really, might really harm the population, and this is already something we have signs of. For example, I have seen terrible images on the motor biker with my husband, so we went to all over Madagascar, and if you drive on a motorbike behind a bus of tourists, I've seen once and twice, several times, that people throw out of the window, not plus Plastic bottles. They throw out money or sweets, or pens, pencils. Who the children who are begging are well now they are begging along the street because they do not even that. They do not even stop the bus. So it happened to us several times that we almost drove over children because of that reason, because they said, Oh, now I know if it's a bus of tourists, as you don't know how they behave, keep your distance, because the children never think that the motorbike will be immediately behind the bus, you know, and then they are on the on the street and collect sweets. I mean, they are not animals. How can you behave like that? It's it's already happening, and it's not mass tourism, but it's really misbehavior and unfortunately, I didn't meet these, these vast people again, because I would have told them how to behave. But they so you see that maybe they had the driver and the local guide who who were not able, who are too shy, because they are shy, to tell these tourists, don't do this. We have to control who is coming to Madagascar before they're here. But there's a lot of I want to make a point here. It really made me think of an experience that I had myself in Morocco. It's to begin with, it's the information that the tourist, in that case, I was a, you know, a visitor, a traveler of the of the area. And I was told before getting there by other people that were there before me, if you go to that place and you are on that street and you're driving your camper van or so, make sure you have pencils with you. Make sure you have these things, because they really need it. They really want it. And so what do you do in the good spirit, you know, in not even thinking that you are actually doing something harmful, you prepare yourself a little pouch of pencils. And when the opportunity comes, I wouldn't throw it out of the window. Yeah, that's a bit extreme, but if we were stopping with the van, we would hand out these things because we were told that it was okay. So that was my personal experience. Imagine just these tourists that perhaps have received this type of information or were encouraged in the wrong way to behave like that.

Sonja Gottlebe:

Yeah, but I do not agree. I was a tour operator for 33 years and in 2018 I started my little NGO beside the company because I I wanted to separate these, well, the the touristic, the capitalistic touristic activity, let's say, and to make very clear, what I'm doing on the humanitarian side. And so that was my solution, given to given to all tour operators who signed with us, with the in Germany and in other countries, because I told them, Well, don't if you want to help. I mean, you send people to the one of the poorest countries of the world. There is guilt, there is misunderstanding, there's there's an emotional shock when you arrive at the airport. But thank you for coming to Madagascar. Thank you to because by traveling to Madagascar, you give so much work and hope to so many people in our industry. And then they are projects. They are organized structures, organizations, schools or projects going on all over Madagascar where you can help. So you help directly there. I can do it for you. And so that it was to make clear that the money they are, their funds, do not come our on our. Company's bank account. So it was a separate bank account. And this solidarity was about. It was not charity. It was organized. Well, I think it was thanks to my husband, who used to work for the Red Cross, the International Red Cross, and Handicap International. So he said, Well, this is how we structure. He structured the whole thing. That's how I learned by experience that, okay, I'm a tourism entrepreneur. I try to do well, but things went wrong, also on my side, too, and because you create expectations. You know, when you bring a group of clients into a small village. The village is beautiful. Everyone says, bonjour, bonjour, Vasa and so on. If you start once, distributing one pencil, the next time you bring another group, it said, Ah, do you have a pencil? And then there are like, like, 50 or 100 children who want pencils and maybe, but if they have a school, go to their school and give the pencils to the teacher, you know, or maybe they don't need pencils, they need something else. So in community based tourism in developing country, is something different, is really it needs to be. It there are rules. Who are existing. It's, well, I think the criteria everything is set. It's just that you need more time to implement all of this. You need to prepare the destinations, the little destinations, and to choose places, because you cannot change the whole country. So you choose one or two or three communities, and you discuss with them, interact with them, and find out what they need. And then you organize the whole product. And then comes the discussion, is this authentic? No, it's what is authentic? Tourism. Everyone wants something authentic. Authentic is not stopping anywhere and doing any kind of you know, crap.

Dolores Semeraro:

Authenticity, I believe, having spoken to operators that offer, you know, so to speak, authentic journeys, or less, the off the beaten path, or the hidden gems and all these buzz words to describe a tourism product, a tourism activity and experience and and we are very good in the tourism industry at at try to make ourselves sound good, you know, trying to get a little bit away from the buzzwords or from the bad words. And I had a an I had an opportunity once to do to conduct a workshop about the difference between a tourism activity and a tourism experience, and how you know what the difference is. And really, what is the the human factor that really makes a difference, and what does that human factor represent and brings and to what extent we as travelers are entitled to interact, to that, to that human factor, because the more we interact with that, the more we contaminate it. It's, it's just as simple as that, exactly. And I think there's a, there's a line between good tourism and monitored tourism, because monitoring tourism, it's not only about monitoring the behavior of the local communities and how they behave with tourists, but also how tourists behave with them. And I think in many cases, we have a lot of work to do still there to bring tourism to to a destination is not enough if the tourists to begin with, are not trained about the destination. You want to train the locals, but we got to train the tourists first. I think, as much as we are investing in educating communities and local local talents, who educates the tourists, so I hope that a conversation like the one we had today that unveils the good, the bad and the ugly of a destination, you know, helps people understand that perhaps they come with all the good intentions, but not all the good intentions do good, right? That's, that's at least how I would frame it.

Sonja Gottlebe:

You know, the last, I would say, the last 10 years of my tour operator career, I changed my mind on how to market Madagascar because of all these experiences. And so I about 20 years I was exhibiting myself on the Tourism Board stand on the main trade shows. And then I found out, well, I was bored. It's so much, it's always the same and same routine, and tourism is evolving. So I found out that it would be more efficient for my own activity to meet, to do sales training, really sales training, going, go to go to the main my main partners, I was, I thought I had enough well. I tried to find new agencies as well on each time. But. And I went from agency to agency with my marketing guy, or Madagascar tour guide as well, with a huge Madagascar map with Madagascan chocolate, because we are famous for our chocolate, this makes always people friendly. And then we went. We had about one hour. It was like a one month show, just showing pictures and explaining and talking and sharing about Madagascar two product managers who are in charge of selling Madagascar. But unfortunately, this was was, well for me, it was very time consuming and expensive, because I had to travel all around Germany and in South Africa, from Cape Town up to Durban and so on. But in and then with, with these e tourism, I mean, with these OTAs, and with a new way to to sell on huge platforms. I I've seen those agencies I've never seen in Europe, in South Africa, huge selling platforms where you have about, I don't know, 30. There are no product managers. They are just selling destinations like crazy. And have like, like in a call center having their headset on. And they speak all kind of languages and sell to Brazil. So they work at night. Others are selling to Asia. They work in the morning. And so they, they, it's impossible for me to train all of them. So the product and I noticed that the product managers had more and more countries to to to know. And so they're not experts anymore of any country. So maybe, maybe there is also something that was, that was a topic we, we've been talking during COVID times was virtual. Remember this virtual Google stuff and, well, it's a bit weird, but I want, I think we could maybe use this type of technology to prepare them and and that they should be really like you said, Okay, you want to come to Madagascar. I would like to to teach you Madagascar. First learn something about Madagascar. If you don't want to come anymore, it doesn't matter, because if one person is unhappy, you lose 10 clients, but if you have one happy client, you get much more. So it's important to find the right people, or maybe, maybe bloggers. Bloggers could be also people who can contribute to to have a better marketing. But then bloggers, you pay them so they're not, I mean, they're not really neutral.

Dolores Semeraro:

My hope is for a destination that enough I spoke to other destinations where they unfortunately, don't have that government support. They don't have the infrastructure. They don't have budgets to really create the basic the base of tourism offering, you know, safety, water, food, transport, healthcare, and these are basics when I see and when I bring the voices of tourism operators like you on the podcast that really are not just there fighting for tomorrow, but actually really, really believing that it's not about it's not it's really about the everyday value that you put forward. And you are putting that value forward in in every training you offer, in every workshop you conduct in every time you speak about Madagascar, and the way you're sharing information today on the podcast is so it's it's transparent as it should be. It doesn't come from a place of bad feeling from the government. We're not criticizing any politics. We're just talking destination management. And as a woman, I can't help but asking my very last question, how does a woman in tourism work in Madagascar? How does it feel like you've been there for many years? How does it look like working in Madagascar as a woman?

Sonja Gottlebe:

It's it's completely safe and easy we have, well, it's a bit contradiction. People are full of paradox. So they say, well, they respect women because women give children, you know? So that's the first reason when you get married. Here, I got married twice in front of Malagasy law, you get the wishes that you get seven seven boys and seven girls. There are 14 pages for children in your family book. So now I stop with three, so you see where, where they have another criteria. You know, the wealth is to have children. But in my company, never had any gender issue. It's not a problem here, because women are respected. And in my company, we were majority of women. I think we were about 70% 70 why? Because only women are reliable. And in this country, so. So mostly reliable and mostly and working hard, handling children at the same time. It's not a problem. And very human. The Malagasy men in my company were doing jobs women shouldn't do, like, I don't know, physical work. You know, sometimes in some regions, you have lots of Muslims in the north, north of Madagascar, so they're a bit, sometimes a bit, well, they do not really listen if you don't, if you're not very strict, they do not listen to you. I used to organize. I did three Ultra Trail something I didn't mention before, but we did supportive tourism as well Ultra Trail running 150 kilometers in three days. And this happened in the north of Madagascar in Diego suis. And so I was, I did this event. I organized it with my husband, and in this region, we had some problems. I had sometimes problems to communicate with the drivers or with the cook, because they didn't just listen to me. They didn't listen to me because I'm a woman, but it's the only place in Madagascar where this happens. And then I told them, Well, you know what, if you don't listen to me, I'm going to pay or not to pay. Then they started to listen.

Dolores Semeraro:

You know, we use all the means we can and but I mean, of course, it's an Yes, it's an example. But I'm so glad that you know you share these examples, because many women, especially in the podcast listeners, are women working in tourism, and they are working in, often in remote areas, with cultures surrounded by, you know, a cultural background that is foreign to them, and they adapt. They're resilient. They continue to work, they do their best, and they succeed. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. We've touched on many important issues and points and truth about Madagascar that I'm so glad we brought up, because a lot of a lot of the things that are known and thought of about this destination could use a little more could use a little more information. Could use a little bit more awareness and consciousness. I took so many notes myself personally, so I'm really glad that we had this opportunity on the show notes of this episode, our podcast listeners will find more about you and how to get in touch with you through your LinkedIn account. I encourage everyone that wants to know more about Madagascar to get in touch with Sonia. I've never met a more passionate ambassador of a destination. Thank you. Thank you so much, which means mercy, Bucha Don cushion. Thank you, and all the best for the work ahead. Thank you.

Sonja Gottlebe:

Thank you so much. Dolores.