Ecotourism in Madagascar - Responsible Tourism: Critical Issues for Conservation and Development - page 22

The current status of ecotourism
in Madagascar
The current tourism arrival figures for Madagascar are far lower than they could
be, considering the country's enormous tourism potential. This is possibly
because the Malagasy authorities never really believed in the potential of tourism
and its development in their own country. This might appear surprising, but
looking deeper into Malagasy culture, the concept of leisure tourism, including
travelling for the purposes of a holiday and staying in a hotel, are locally unknown.
Similar to African mainland countries, such as Rwanda, the majority of the local
population does not have the financial means to travel and if they travel, they stay
with family or friends.
Nevertheless, recent tourism development has shown promising results
within a very short period: in four years visitor arrivals have more than doubled
with over 300,000 in 2006 and the annual growth rate has been between 15 and
20 per cent. Tourism still ranks among the main providers of foreign currency for
the Malagasy economy and reached second position in 2006. The average length
of time spent in the country is 20 days (Ministry for Culture and Tourism, 2006),
which is significant compared to the global average ratio of 12 days (World
Tourism Organization, 2006). Europe remains Madagascar's main source market,
with the greatest numbers of tourists coming from France and Italy, followed by
Switzerland and Germany. In the recent past other countries, such as the US and
China, and especially Madagascar's neighbours Reunion, Mauritius and South
Africa have discovered the island as a tourism destination (Ministry for Culture
and Tourism, 2006). The majority of the tourists are travelling with a tour opera-
tor by bus or by car with a local driver.
Current tourism development is concentrated in the North (Nosy Be Island,
Diego-Suarez), the north-west (around Morondava), the south road, RN 7, from
the capital Antanananarivo to the village of Túlear and to the east including Ste.
Marie Island.
As the masterplan has been neglected in the past, the country is unfortunately
still lacking an overall understanding of what is needed for tourism development
and hindering aspects are the same as 10 years ago. There are insufficient links
between the necessary institutions and the private sector; poor accessibility due to
limited direct flights from abroad; inconvenient and unreliable infrastructure
including road networks, railroad systems and public transport; a lack of tourist
facilities such as accommodation and existing products and services do not meet
international tourism standards (Gato, 2005). Services are often carried out in the
country's own style of 'mora mora' (meaning 'slowly, do not stress!'). The private
sector works hard to act more professionally but this is difficult due to a lack of
quality training institutions (Spenceley and Rozga, 2007).
From a marketing perspective, Madagascar still lacks an international destina-
tion image. Although it is, unfortunately, still an undiscovered location, one could
say that it is also one of the best hidden secrets of international tourism today.The
push for development, especially ecotourism development, and the lobbying for