After two lean years due to Covid-19, the destination “Morocco” is regaining all its tourist interest, both internationals and Moroccan diaspora reaching a massive number of 3.2 million tourists.
Despite the rise in air ticket prices, tourists from all over the world are once again favoring their favorite pre-crisis destination: Morocco.
Tourism indicators recorded scores that were significantly closer to their pre-crisis level in the second quarter of 2022, alongside tourism receipts that exceeded their 2019 level, according to a recent note from the Department of Economic Studies and Financial Forecast (DEPF).
Supporting figures, Morocco welcomed during June and July 2022 about 3.2 million tourists, including 65% in July with more than 2 million arrivals.
The exceptional performance has made it possible to recover 100% of arrivals for June and July 2019, and credited to the department of Tourism, as indicators recorded results that are tangibly close to the pre-crisis level, during the second quarter of 2022, in parallel with tourism incomes that exceeded the level of 2019.
For their part, the airports of the Kingdom recorded, at the end of July 2022, a commercial traffic volume of 9,813,316 passengers through 89,648 airport movements for all airports, according to the National Airports Office (ONDA).
The office specified that by the end of July, Morocco’s airports thus continued to show largely positive recovery rates compared to the same period of 2019, welcoming 70% of passengers and 75% of airport movements.
The latter brought remarkable repercussions, a momentum of recovery reflected in all the other indicators, including the number of overnight stays, which totaled 3.8 million overnight stays for June and July 2022.
In terms of the sector’s foreign currency earnings, 27.3 billion dirhams were generated during the first half of 2022, which makes an exceptional recovery rate of 81% in 2019, given the closure of borders during the first 5 weeks of the year 2022. The month of June alone represents approximately 25% of these receipts.
Moroccans living abroad (MRE): The massive influx of Moroccans living abroad during this summer was considered a breath of fresh air and an opportunity to revitalize the national economy, in particular the tourism sector.
The presence of the diaspora is concretely noted in several cities of the Kingdom, particularly during this summer period. This remarkable influx is the fruitful result of the smooth running of operation “Marhaba”. This operation came back this year with a battery of measures, that ensures a smooth transit of MREs to their mother country and demonstrates the efforts made by the supervisory ministry, through important operational measures aimed at guaranteeing the conditions of safe and smooth crossing for Moroccans around the world.
In detail, an important fleet plan adapted to port infrastructures, flow management capacities, and forecast traffic. Thus, a total of 32 ships were mobilized on all shipping lines linking Moroccan ports to Spanish, French, and Italian ports. These ships have a total capacity of approximately 478,000 passengers and 123,000 cars, through 571 weekly trips.
On Tuesday, August 30, 2020, Fatim-Zahra Ammor, Minister of Tourism, Handicrafts, and Social and Solidarity Economy launched the work of the “New Road Map for Tourism“, in cooperation with the main actors and professionals of the tourism sector. (The National Tourism Confederation and several representatives of its member associations and federations).
After the minister emphasized that it is required to play a stronger role in the direction outlined in the report of the special committee for preparing the new development model. Therefore the preparation of the strategic roadmap for the sector collectively falls within the framework of the vision of doubling the number of tourists visiting our country by 2030 to reach 26 million tourists.
In light of this new strategy and “New Road Map for Tourism”, and concerning the foundation adopted by the Ministry of Tourism in highlighting this ambition represented in attracting 26 million tourists by the year 2030, during a statement given to Barlaman Today, Zoubir Bouhoute, an economist in the tourism sector, went public saying that the information is not available in a clear way so far, moreover, what they have is only the communiqué announced by the Ministry of Tourism about the preparation of “New Road Map for Tourism” by 2030, adding that it will take a period of 12 weeks minimum in order to study the means and the possible paths to reach that goal. Also, there are many ongoing meetings with professionals that are centered on many topics such as how Morocco will embellish domestic tourism, and how will media play a significant role in promoting tourism, in the meantime, federations of professionals are still suggesting plans for this New Road Map.
“Attracting 26 million tourists by 2030 is possible given the qualifications that Morocco possesses, its proximity to the largest source for tourists, and the distinguished relationship it has with major tourist-exporting countries, in addition to the qualitative leap achieved by Morocco in strengthening its infrastructure, as well as Morocco’s preparation of a new investment charter that would act as an incentive to attract huge foreign investment in addition to mobilizing savings and domestic investment. However, this new strategy must work to attract the largest number of foreign tourists: 18 million foreign tourists and 8 Moroccans from the world, compared to 7 million foreign tourists and about 5.9 million from the world’s Moroccans in 2019. It should also seek to improve the sector’s performance indicators in terms of the number of overnight stays, which can reach 80 million tourist nights (48 million of which are provided by international tourism), compared to 25 million tourist nights in 2019. The share of domestic tourism must also be raised to reach 32 million tourist nights, which represents 40% of the total overnight stays, instead of 30% recorded in 2019.” Says Bouhoute.
Considerable efforts have been made by the supervisory ministry to upgrade the tourist offer and promote Morocco as a destination, such as allocating a budget for the 2022 fiscal year for the tourism sector that has increased by 8%, compared to the previous year, that is more than 670 million dirhams, of which 616.6 million dirhams are allocated to investment and 63.14 million dirhams to management. This made it possible to achieve the ambition of an accelerated return to the levels known in the sector before the Covid-19 pandemic.
In this trace, the actions of the Moroccan National Tourist Office (ONMT) are not to be outdone. Indeed, the tourism strategy undertaken by the Office has resolutely paved the way for the revitalization of the Moroccan offer. The ONMT resolutely offers the Morocco label a positioning at the top of the bill of the most popular destinations, aiming to make the Kingdom an essential destination for travelers.
Unquestionably, the efforts made to upgrade the tourist offer and promote Morocco as a destination have made it possible to achieve the ambition of an accelerated return to the usual levels we got used to seeing in the past.