TOURISM – The actions of the Moroccan Tourist Engineering Company (SMIT) have enabled the creation of 259,000 tourist beds accumulated at the end of May 2016. Several hotel structures have also been created in different regions of Morocco, said the Minister of Tourism Lahcen Haddad on Wednesday June 29 in Rabat.
The one who also chaired the SMIT supervisory board estimated that the results were « positive » but would benefit from « being reinforced during the next five-year term, by the mobilization of 20 billion dirhams of tourism investment per year, compared to 10 billion between 2010 and 2015 ».
Despite the crisis that Moroccan tourism is going through, investment in this sector is doing well. In 2016, several brands announced their desire to set up in the kingdom. This is the case of the Fairmont Hotels & Resorts brand which has launched construction on two new hotel structures in Salé and Taghazout, near Agadir. In Tamuda Bay, a few kilometers from Tetouan, the Sofitel has just opened its new hotel covering an area of more than 38,000 square meters.
Marrakech, the locomotive of tourism in Morocco, hosted the Mandarin Oriental as well as the Grand Savoy Marrakech and the five-star Radisson Blu establishment. The Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts group has also announced the opening of a new establishment in the ocher city in 2016.
If Lahcen Haddad can be proud of these achievements, its results remain mixed. The Minister of Tourism, who initially aimed to attract 20 million tourists by 2020, will have to lower his objectives. Halfway through, “Vision 2020” seems difficult to achieve. Because if, in 2015, the number of tourists in Morocco managed to rise above the 10 million mark (10.17 exactly), compared to 9.3 million in 2010, we are still far from the figures expected in less than five years, and which are no longer mentioned by the ministry.
Source: huffpostmaghreb
