KEDGE graduates, help this Kedger's travel agency and win a trip to Mongolia!

Were you a member of any student associations while you were at KEDGE?

First of all, I joined Marketing Méditerranée, the school’s Junior Enterprise, and became its Vice President in my 2nd year. In 2002, we won the Junior Enterprise Excellence Award in 2002. That experience made my student life very demanding with a strong commitment to school life. I spent almost all my evenings at school working. I also wrote for Meuh-Meuh, the school newspaper. In addition, I had a very active student life. I was lucky enough to share a great flatshare with three other students in a large flat downtown where we often met with other students. Between that, and the many parties at the student halls, I was never bored for a single second during those three wonderful years!

MARKETING MEDITERRANEE

Tell us what you did after your studies were finished. What positions have you held? What did you learn in those positions? 

In 2003, I had the good fortune to take a year off from school. After I did a six-month internship in the purchasing department of the Carrefour private label, another student and I took a big trip through Asia and Eastern Europe. We travelled through Nepal, Tibet, China, Mongolia, Russia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, and the Netherlands. Visiting one of these countries, Mongolia, had a major impact on my life. I fell in love with, not only the steppes that I was able to ride through on horseback, but I also fell in love with a local woman.

In May 2004, after 3rd year was over, I left to do a VIE in Singapore with Saint-Gobain Desjonquères. A few months earlier, its human resources manager had given a lecture at the school. Afterwards, I went to talk to him and told him that the only destination I was interested in going was Singapore (the girl I had met in Mongolia was studying there). I was in luck, he just had a position opening up there for a VIE. I went to Singapore and carried out a market study on the consumption of glass cosmetic and perfume bottles. This study justified the opening of a factory in Guangzhou. After that was finished, I was put in charge of business development in the Chinese and Vietnamese markets.

At the end of my second VIE with Saint-Gobain, I was told that in order to have a career with them, I had to go through their head office in the La Défense district of Paris. I was faced with a life choice: do what was best for my career, or do what I really wanted, which was to stay in Asia. My desire to escape prevailed. I stayed in Asia and, five months later I decided to leave for Ulan Bator to open a travel agency which offered horse riding, trekking, and other expeditions in Mongolia.

SYLVAIN RECOURAS-MASSAQUANT - LINKEDIN

What are you doing today? What gave you the idea and the desire to do what you’re doing today?

It started in February 2006 and took off quickly. In the summer of 2008, we had already welcomed 500 customers. Nevertheless, I quickly realised that, by having only a single destination with a low chance of building customer loyalty, the acquisition costs were high for us compared to those of a traditional agency. It was therefore essential to work with other local agencies to increase efficacy.

In April 2013, I felt that local agencies that had a good grasp of the field and were the real experts, and that trip organisers could have a bright future. So, I joined forces with three Mongolian developers and we founded Nomadays. Our goal was to bring awareness to our members' own identity, their know-how, and their commitment at the local level to offer trips that are more personal and responsible. Since August 2019, Nomadays has been registered in France.

Based on Nomadays figures, I invested in other destinations:

• In 2015, I created Kyrgyz'What, a travel agency in Kyrgyzstan (office in Bishkek) - www.voyagekirghizistan.com;
• In 2017, I created Seripheap, a travel agency in Cambodia (office in Phnom Penh) - www.voyagecambodge.com;
• In 2018, I invested in the Azimuth Adventure travel agency in Indonesia (Yogyakarta office) - www.voyageindonesie.com;
• In 2018, I invested in the Détours Madagascar agency in Madagascar (Antananarivo office) - www.voyagemadagascar.com ;
• In 2019, I acquired the Asia Golf agency, which we renamed Sawa Discovery, based in Chiang Mai (Thailand) - www.voyagethailande.fr.

NOMADAYS

What are your development plans for the future?

Unfortunately, since the beginning of the year, the Covid-19 pandemic has plunged the entire global tourism ecosystem into an unprecedented crisis. For the past nine months, we’ve been doing our utmost to preserve the jobs of our employees in Mongolia, as well as those of our friends and relatives. The government of Mongolia can’t set up partial unemployment measures or guarantee other financial aid. We are currently living on our last reserves, and have already invested a lot of our own savings to survive, but this our personal generosity is no longer enough.

We’re currently short of both resources and options, so we’ve come up with the idea of organising a large solidarity fundraiser to support or help our teams survive while we wait for our activity to resume - at least until May 2021. Because we owe our success and the success of your trips to them, it’s our responsibility to fight to preserve their jobs, and we are gambling on getting of this crisis without leaving any of our employees in a precarious situation.

We hope that the Alumni network will help us to win this gamble! At the end of this fundraiser, we are holding a competition to thank those who contributed, with over 5,000 euros in prizes, including a 10-day trip for two to Mongolia. For the longer term, we are also looking for assistance in organising a fundraising event and financing our development.

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If you were to give advice to any KEDGE graduate who wants to do something similar, what would it be?

If I were to give young graduates one piece of advice, it would be to tell them that they are young, that they have the future ahead of them, and to not to be afraid to colour outside the lines. I would also tell them that they shouldn’t hesitate to give it their all to make their dreams come true. It's easier to do this when you’re 20 and don’t have a family and responsibilities than it is when you’re 40. So don't put off your life projects until tomorrow. Have confidence in yourself and go for it.

Then, more pragmatically, I would advise that when they have financial limitations, to invest in communication as a priority. Aim high to generate sales and become a success because of those sales. At certain times during my career, I’ve had companies in which I had invested the majority of the capital to create a very efficient production tool but, without having the funds to promote it, it was a commercial failure. On the other hand, other times I invested massively in communication to sell a product that had not yet been finalised, and it was a great commercial success. I’ll sum up all the marketing courses: what is seen, is sold. Of course, you have to be aware that, even if the product hasn’t been finished by the time it is marketed, ultimately it exactly matches what you have sold! My second piece of advice is to always respect your customers. Customer satisfaction is not enough, you must succeed in creating an appeal for your products and your brand and they will become your best ambassadors. And of course, respect your teams and create an excellent working atmosphere, even if it is done remotely. Not only will you have a loyal team that will help you grow, but without committed employees, you will never succeed in enchanting your customers.