Welcome back to another quarterly newsletter. Thank you for your dedication to our mission of creating the access that local communities need to determine their own outcomes of tourism. This year has gotten off to a very fast start, with several key projects being developed and launched at the same time.

First off, we are in the process of developing a new and improved version of our travel marketplace platform. One that will provide our local vendors with the ability to provide more customizable offers, but also drastically improve the user experience for the travelers. In doing this we will greatly increase our odds of ranking on search engines like Google so that more people organically find our website and purchase experience offers from our local vendors. Currently we have designed the new website with our local partner, Travelizeo, and are now searching for the right developer within Madagascar.

As part of this new development, we are improving our payment process so that we can funnel as much of travelers’ purchases directly into the local economy in Madagascar. This project presents arguably our greatest challenge when providing local communities the access they need to determine their own outcomes of tourism. We are determined to find the absolute best payment processing solutions for our local vendors.

A very exciting development is that we just launched a new program called TourOnePlanet – Madagascar. This program is being led by four local Malagasy young people. Two of them have educational backgrounds in tourism while the other two have backgrounds in social work. The goal of this program is to create additional travel experience offers that come from individuals who may lack the technological or lingual capacities to directly access our web platform. The TourOnePlanet – Madagascar team will act as an intermediary for these individuals and provide a unique portfolio of experiences on our platform that come from local vendors like these. Having this program in place gives us in-country brand representation at all times. With the startup capital we are providing to this group, it is the goal that these four individuals will create their own TourOnePlanet franchise in Madagascar which will not only fulfill the goals that I articulated, but also provide services directly to local Malagasy travelers eager to engage with the TourOnePlanet brand.

Lastly, this past month we were lucky enough to be sponsors for the first ever Viavy Film Festival that was founded by a great friend and supporter of ours, Koloina. The film festival is a platform to shine light on local filmmakers in Madagascar with a special emphasis on women. We had the initial screening of a trailer for a film that we produced, directed by Koloina, documenting our journey to Andavadoaka exactly one year ago.

Personally, I will be in the United States a little bit longer than usual, but will return to Madagascar by quarter 3. I’m enjoying each day and the challenges that this startup presents. I love what I do, and would have it no other way!

Thank you all so much for your never ending encouragement and support!

Sincerely,
Tim McGuire
Founder & CEO