Social and Societal Impact Analysis, CSR

Positive Aspects :

• Direct and Indirect Employment: Détours Madagascar employs about twenty permanent Malagasy employees (travel advisors, package designers, accounting, communications, logistics, security staff, and cleaners) with a fair salary policy, well above the Malagasy minimum wage. This is supplemented by numerous benefits: training, supplementary health insurance, paid leave that exceeds the legal requirements, and allowances for meals and transportation. 

• The agency also employs a large number of people on a direct, occasional, and regular basis: around twenty drivers and national guides, thirty regular car rental providers spread across Madagascar (Antananarivo, Antsiranana / Diego Suarez, Morondava, Nosy Be, Tulear, Toamasina / Tamatave…), as well as hundreds of local service providers, including porters, track markers, and local guides for trekking and hiking. For these individuals, tourism provides a significant supplementary income, which, although seasonal, helps support their primary livelihoods, often based on agriculture or livestock, and sometimes even illicit activities. By involving local populations in tourism, the agency contributes to reducing insecurity by ensuring these communities benefit from it, rather than being disadvantaged. 

• Beyond these direct jobs, don't forget the indirect employment stimulated on a daily basis by the agency's activities: hoteliers, restaurateurs, artisans, village associations, air, rail, and river transport companies. The entire value chain of the tourism sector is positively impacted. The agency also ensures it selects and prioritizes partners aligned with its values and committed to sustainable tourism: eco-lodges and charming or unusual accommodations, small family-run local structures (avoiding large international hotel chains), rural guesthouses managed by local communities, and artisans with authentic, high-value skills.

• The agency ensures employees' working conditions are respected, both in the office and on the field: comfort and ergonomics in the office, preparation of healthy and balanced meals for lunch, access to drinking water filtration systems. On the field, the agency, for example, ensures that porters are not overloaded during trekking (18 kg maximum per porter), and it organizes journeys with optimal time management to avoid long road trips that would affect the well-being of both drivers and travelers.

• The agency encourages its employees to engage in the company's day-to-day operations and success through weekly consultations, performance bonuses, and challenges. This approach stimulates and seeks to empower employees on past, present, and future challenges the agency faces in terms of human, economic, and environmental issues. Leadership, innovation, and the contribution of creative, bold, and unconventional ideas are highly encouraged, both among guides, who contribute new insights from field experiences, and in the office when creating itineraries, partnerships, setting business directions, or managing day-to-day operations.
  For example, the agency offered permaculture training to willing employees, with the goal of developing sustainable practices that could benefit both office personnel and field guides as well as travelers.

The company works daily to create a work environment where social and working conditions are fair and fulfilling, both in the office and on the field. These efforts contribute to employee retention and motivation, creating a virtuous circle that supports the agency's success through the well-being of its employees. These actions also help reduce unemployment, improve living conditions for employees and local populations, and promote access to quality training in the tourism sector.

Areas for Improvement:

• Détours could offer more training opportunities for all employees, both in the office and on the field, to further motivate and qualify them. It would be valuable to allow office teams to experience the realities of the field, and vice versa. This would strengthen the relationships between employees at all levels and improve team dynamics through a better mutual understanding of each other’s work.

• The agency could also offer trips tailored to different audiences, such as low-income travelers or individuals with disabilities, who are currently not targeted by the company.

• Lastly, it would be beneficial to take even more account of employee satisfaction and their ideas in addition to the weekly meetings where everyone can express their views. For example, conducting anonymous internal satisfaction surveys or setting up a suggestion box would allow for freer expression of ideas and feelings. We observed that, culturally, it is difficult for employees to express their thoughts or feelings in front of a group that includes higher-ups. The anonymity of such surveys could encourage more open communication and a better exchange of ideas.

Thesis Excerpt - Maëlle GUILLET 

Tourism in Madagascar, a Naturally Responsible Destination? The Case of Détours Madagascar  

Professional License in Tourism and Solidarity Economy,  

University of Avignon and the Vaucluse Region