A second international airport will be built within a few years in Marrakech, one of Morocco’s main tourist destinations, in order to absorb the increase in traffic, which is expected to reach nearly 15 million passengers per year before 2030, the local press reported on Monday.
The new platform will be built at a cost of approximately 400 million euros (C$578.72 million), as part of a public-private partnership, and the search for financing will begin next year, according to the daily L’Économiste. It will have a capacity of 10 million passengers “and several ancillary structures”.
This project was studied during a recent meeting organized by the Marrakech prefecture in the presence of the Minister of Equipment, Aziz Rebbah, and the main decision-makers in the region, according to the same source.
It does not call into question the extension work at the current Menara airport, which should increase its capacity to some 9 million passengers per year, the newspaper says.
The ocher city constitutes, with Agadir, the main tourist destination in Morocco, a country which last year crossed the threshold of 10 million visitors (+7% compared to the previous year).
In a recent interview with AFP, the Minister of Tourism, Lahcen Haddad, confirmed the kingdom’s desire to reach the 20 million mark by 2020.
Tourism is the second largest contributor to GDP, behind agriculture, at 8-10%. In 2013, its turnover reached nearly 100 billion dirhams (C$12.9 billion).
