I was thirteen when I first discovered Morocco. I could tell you about the light, the Atlas Mountains, or the aromas of spices.
Yet the memory that has accompanied me for more than forty years is quite different. A road toward the Algerian border. A poverty I had never imagined. Glances I did not know how to bear.
I got out of the car. I threw up.
For a long time, I believed it was only a travel memory. Today, I think that my body understood before my mind that there are realities to which one cannot remain indifferent.
We sometimes take decades to find the words for what our hearts already knew.
A few years later, another journey would overturn my perspective.
Yet the memory that has accompanied me for more than forty years is quite different. A road toward the Algerian border. A poverty I had never imagined. Glances I did not know how to bear.
I got out of the car. I threw up.
For a long time, I believed it was only a travel memory. Today, I think that my body understood before my mind that there are realities to which one cannot remain indifferent.
We sometimes take decades to find the words for what our hearts already knew.
A few years later, another journey would overturn my perspective.
The Stendhal Syndrome
In 2006, in Cyprus, one evening, in a small tavern, the music stops.The men rise. One after another, they kneel before their wives and lay rose petals at their feet. Nothing ostentatious. Nothing theatrical. Only an infinitely simple way to honor the woman with whom they share their life.
I stand still. The tears rise and I cannot hold them back.
The next day, I collapse.
In trying to understand what had happened to me, I discover the Stendhal syndrome.
But this medical explanation did not answer the essential question. What had overwhelmed me was not the beauty of a landscape or a work of art. It was the almost physical encounter with a form of unconditional love that our society often speaks of, yet does not always know how to live.
Many years later, when I chose the name Agapè, I understood that that evening had sown a seed whose name I did not yet know.
When discovering a country reveals who we are
In 2013, I set off for India with my twenty-year-old son. We thought we were going to discover a country. It is he who reveals us to ourselves.
We are struck by the constant coexistence of the most dazzling luxury and the most extreme poverty.
One day, a cow rams me with its horn. I was afraid. My son looks at me and simply says: “She sensed it.” This sentence will haunt me for a long time.
I wondered whether my intuitions were drawing to me what I feared. It took me years to understand that they created nothing. They merely perceived what was already unfolding.
We return on August 27. On November 21, I leave Thomas Cook. Many regard it as a rupture. I saw only fidelity. I was not leaving a company I loved. I was simply no longer abandoning myself.
Looking back on this journey today, I understand that these travels and my profession have never told two different stories. They told only one.
We are struck by the constant coexistence of the most dazzling luxury and the most extreme poverty.
One day, a cow rams me with its horn. I was afraid. My son looks at me and simply says: “She sensed it.” This sentence will haunt me for a long time.
I wondered whether my intuitions were drawing to me what I feared. It took me years to understand that they created nothing. They merely perceived what was already unfolding.
We return on August 27. On November 21, I leave Thomas Cook. Many regard it as a rupture. I saw only fidelity. I was not leaving a company I loved. I was simply no longer abandoning myself.
Looking back on this journey today, I understand that these travels and my profession have never told two different stories. They told only one.
Crises Never Strike Without Warning
When I joined Havas Voyages in 1989, I thought I would learn the art of being a travel agent. In reality, I gradually learned what it means to be responsible for the experience others will live through.
Behind every trip lie choices, trade-offs, and responsibilities.
From 2004 onward, I read hundreds, then thousands, of complaints. Food poisonings. Hotels that deteriorate. Fragile suppliers. Decisions that seem trivial when examined in isolation, but when stitched together, tell a far deeper story.
I am not yet speaking of weak signals. I simply discover that crises never strike without warning.
In 2009, I completed my first carbon footprint assessment. Not for public relations. To understand. I needed to confront my intuitions with facts. Intuition opens a door. Knowledge learns to cross it.
When I participated in COP21 in 2015, I first felt immense hope. Finally, scientists, governments, businesses and civil society seemed to be looking in the same direction.
Then a subtle dissonance emerged. Speeches advance faster than decisions. Commitments faster than renunciations.
I left with a conviction that has never left me: life does not negotiate. It responds.
Behind every trip lie choices, trade-offs, and responsibilities.
From 2004 onward, I read hundreds, then thousands, of complaints. Food poisonings. Hotels that deteriorate. Fragile suppliers. Decisions that seem trivial when examined in isolation, but when stitched together, tell a far deeper story.
I am not yet speaking of weak signals. I simply discover that crises never strike without warning.
In 2009, I completed my first carbon footprint assessment. Not for public relations. To understand. I needed to confront my intuitions with facts. Intuition opens a door. Knowledge learns to cross it.
When I participated in COP21 in 2015, I first felt immense hope. Finally, scientists, governments, businesses and civil society seemed to be looking in the same direction.
Then a subtle dissonance emerged. Speeches advance faster than decisions. Commitments faster than renunciations.
I left with a conviction that has never left me: life does not negotiate. It responds.
We Struggle to Turn What We Know into Decisions
About Cathy Bou
The path of Cathy Bou is that of a professional who grew up with tourism.
Entering Thomas Cook as an intern in a travel agency in Arcachon, she builds there, over nearly twenty-five years, a rich and evolving career.
From travel agent to head of customer relations in the Paris region, she discovers the trade in all its dimensions: distribution, customer relations, the handling of sensitive situations, management, change management and the early challenges of sustainable development.
Driven by a thirst to learn and to share, she chose in 2015 to reinvent herself and earned a Master in Management of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) at the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers (CNAM). This training marked a decisive turning point: applying her tourism expertise to sustainable transformation.
She then founded Agapè, a consulting firm specializing in responsible strategy. Since then, she has supported companies, travel agencies, tour operators, event organizers and health sector actors in building models that balance economic performance, environmental responsibility and social impact.
Her journey has led her to speak at major international events such as the COP21, the G7 in Biarritz, the BIG trade show by Bpifrance, and the UICN World Conservation Congress, as well as with public institutions, large companies and reference organizations, including the Curie Institute.
Nothing in her background foretold this path. It is precisely this practitioner’s perspective, forged by on-the-ground experience as much as by strategic reflection, that now informs her analyses.
Through her columns in TourMaG, she defends a belief: the tourism of tomorrow will be built by balancing the health of businesses, the health of people and the health of living beings.
Entering Thomas Cook as an intern in a travel agency in Arcachon, she builds there, over nearly twenty-five years, a rich and evolving career.
From travel agent to head of customer relations in the Paris region, she discovers the trade in all its dimensions: distribution, customer relations, the handling of sensitive situations, management, change management and the early challenges of sustainable development.
Driven by a thirst to learn and to share, she chose in 2015 to reinvent herself and earned a Master in Management of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) at the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers (CNAM). This training marked a decisive turning point: applying her tourism expertise to sustainable transformation.
She then founded Agapè, a consulting firm specializing in responsible strategy. Since then, she has supported companies, travel agencies, tour operators, event organizers and health sector actors in building models that balance economic performance, environmental responsibility and social impact.
Her journey has led her to speak at major international events such as the COP21, the G7 in Biarritz, the BIG trade show by Bpifrance, and the UICN World Conservation Congress, as well as with public institutions, large companies and reference organizations, including the Curie Institute.
Nothing in her background foretold this path. It is precisely this practitioner’s perspective, forged by on-the-ground experience as much as by strategic reflection, that now informs her analyses.
Through her columns in TourMaG, she defends a belief: the tourism of tomorrow will be built by balancing the health of businesses, the health of people and the health of living beings.
About Agapè
Agapè is a consulting firm in responsible strategy that assists organizations in their transformation efforts, certification processes, environmental assessments and capacity-building initiatives.
The firm primarily operates in the realms of tourism, events and health, with a strong conviction: responsible performance is born from balancing economic, human, environmental and governance dimensions.
It also rests on leaders’ ability to understand complexity, to make informed decisions and to act with coherence.
Through its consulting, auditing, training and digital solution development missions, Agapè helps organizations turn their commitment to responsibility into a genuine lever of performance, resilience and living beings preservation.
More than a consulting firm, Agapè develops an ecosystem of methods, tools and training designed to guide decision-makers through the transitions shaping tomorrow’s world.
The firm primarily operates in the realms of tourism, events and health, with a strong conviction: responsible performance is born from balancing economic, human, environmental and governance dimensions.
It also rests on leaders’ ability to understand complexity, to make informed decisions and to act with coherence.
Through its consulting, auditing, training and digital solution development missions, Agapè helps organizations turn their commitment to responsibility into a genuine lever of performance, resilience and living beings preservation.
More than a consulting firm, Agapè develops an ecosystem of methods, tools and training designed to guide decision-makers through the transitions shaping tomorrow’s world.
