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THE sustainable tourism highlighted by the ONTM with Procom

The National Office of tourism of Madagascar (ONTM) benefited from funding from the Employment and Regional Integration Support Program (PROCOM) as part of the project entitled : Promotion and support by ONTMs to the development of sustainable tourism in Madagascar.

Although Madagascar has great tourist potential with many attractions, the sector is struggling to develop due to several factors including the ignorance of the product and circuits by tour operators international and difficult and costly access to foreign markets for national operators.

Participations to international fairs

With the support of Procom, The ONTM has carried out several marketing activities including the organization of 7 Road shows on the target markets. The objective is to allow operators to establish, cheaper, Contacts identified by ONTM. To this are added fruitful participations in two professional fairs, The ITB lounge in Berlin of 07 to the 11 March 2018 and the top resa in Paris of 25 to the 28 September 2018.

Indeed, 9 operators, A hotel and a airline took part in the large living room tourism professional in Germany. They managed to tie 147 contacts professionals. In the same way, the 8 Top Resa participating operators tied 82 contacts.

To strenghten targeted positions

The project of a nine -month, With a global budget for 619.808.507 Ariary (about 179.795 €), is funded up to 57,01% by procum. The project aims in particular the increase in the number of programming in catalog of the Madagascar destination at the start of the German and French markets on the affinity segments identified by the study on the marketing strategy developed by the international firm Leon Travel & Tourism fi n 2016.

This study recommends positioning the destination with professionals of these markets on fauna and flora themes, birdwatching, Trek and hike as well as sports fishing and scuba diving. These markets transmitters were chosen according to several criteria including the number of arrivals recorded annually, L’Emizencia Directs, language affinity and The potential linked to the main themes.

Of the tools for professionals

The new positioning of the destination requires the design of marketing supports in line with the five themes selected and the two target markets. Thus, A new bilingual sales manual (in French and English) in digital format has been developed to allow international operators to have, in an operational format, detailed tutorial on the destination.

This new tool for selling and programming the destination was distributed during the two professional tourism fairs, During road shows and during training dedicated to French and German professionals as well as educational in Madagascar. These various actions financed by Procom and implemented by ONTMs made it possible to improve knowledge of the destination among international resellers. 24 of them were notably invited to educational circuits in Madagascar.

In addition, Malagasy operators have benefited from the implementation of partnerships salespeople with foreign operators for better access to markets international.

The sector expects a lot from these marketing operations, in particular professionals directly of the project, namely 29 Receptive national tour operators developing eco-tourist circuits and a coherence offer with the strategy defined by Leon Travel firm. Case also of 30 national companies (hoteliers, car rental companies, specialized providers and national parks) who had the opportunity to present their structure and professionalism to international tour operators during educational circuits, as well as more than 230 Companies having exhibited at the International Fair Tourism Fair Madagascar 2018 in Antananarivo, during which 283 “B to B” meetings were organized. Coco Lodge Majunga, Hôtel★★★, Gourmet restaurant, Tour operator, Rental of 4×4 with driver guide and event organizer (conferences, seminars, workshops, lunches/dinners with themes, wedding, anniversary, boy-girl stag).

These meetings b to b at the ITM could not have taken place without the presence of international tour operators funded by the Procom program within the educational.