Nomade Aventure was awarded the very first "Adventure Travel of the Year 2018" Award for "Sulawesi: the expe!" on Tuesday, April 10. It is a trip chosen by the editor of Grands Reportages, among the thousands offered each year by French tour operators, and has triumphed over the dozen formidable finalists. The trip expresses all the know-how and the commitments of the agency.
Launched on March 1 by Grands Reportages, the "Adventure Travel of the Year" event featured ten trips selected by the editor of the famous magazine among the thousands of the best adventure travel agencies. And so it was an expedition of Nomade Aventure, launched last October, that won. "With this prize, the editors reward the inventiveness and originality of Nomade Aventure for this trip in partnership with explorer Evrard Wendenbaum, who works to preserve unexplored massifs around the world," says Anthony Nicolazzi, editor of the magazine. "The possibility, also, of integrating a true exploration expedition, in a spirit of adventure beyond norm."
This statement went straight to the heart of Fabrice Del Taglia, the C.E.O. of Nomade, who was personally behind the creation of this trip and which he himself took part in during the first departure. It was awarded the prizes at an evening at the Quai Branly Museum on Tuesday, April 10. "This choice dedicates the know-how and the passion that are ours in the creation of voyages both original and engaged," he said.
First and foremost, it is certainly one of the most original and even exclusive trips in the current production of Nomade Aventure, since not only the destination (the island of Sulawesi, in Indonesia) is almost absent from the offers of French tour operators, but especially the Matarombeo Massif, where the trip takes place largely, is almost totally unexplored and had never been the subject of a "tourist" trip before. But this is not the only one, especially since Nomade launched, and develops, its range of "exceptional trips" (of which "Sulawesi: the expe!" is obviously part), which also includes about ten trips accompanied by members of the prestigious Société des Explorateurs Français as part of the exclusive partnership concluded last year. It is therefore fully in line with the tour operator's strategy to seek more and more "to offer our customers, as far as possible, truly exclusive trips, including trips that a non-professional could not means, whether it is the difficulty of the itinerary, the complexity of the logistics required, or the added value of the accompaniment by a true expert of the destination and/or the theme of the trip," Del Taglia said.
But this trip is also a reflection of the tour operator's commitment to responsible tourism. Because, with the expeditions framed for Nomade by Evrard Wendenbaum, founder of the NGO Naturevolution, it is the trips themselves that are vectors of environmental protection: In the Makay (Madagascar) and Matarombéo ( Indonesia), taking small groups of travelers contributes to the preservation of regions with a very high biodiversity value, which has so far been unprotected. By showing the local populations and the authorities the economic potential - especially ecotourism - of these areas, Evrard was able to start to get the ranking. But sometimes, the urgency orders other actions: thus, after having noted, on the trip "Sulawesi: the expe!" the abundance of plastic waste in the Bay of Matarape, Nomade decided to financially support the project of Evrard to set up an original collection and recycling system. The loop is closed.