Tourist activity maintains its pace in the fourth month of the year. Good progress was shown at the end of April both in terms of arrivals and overnight stays. This is what the Tourism Observatory lets us know in the April dashboard. For the fourth month of the year, Morocco recorded the arrival of more than 3 million tourists, including 1.82 million foreign tourists and 1.14 million Moroccans residing abroad. Thanks to this flow, arrivals showed an improvement of 10% compared to the same period last year. Arrivals of foreign tourists for stay thus recovered by 13.7% over the first four months of the year. Those of MREs increased by 4.6% over the same period.
In these statistics, the Tourism Observatory highlights clear growth in the main source markets. Arrivals from the German market increased by 11%, or 188,694 German tourists who visited Morocco between January and April 2017. Spanish arrivals improved by 9%, totaling 590,971 tourists at the end of April. The Belgian and Dutch markets followed the same pace, showing respective growth of 8 and 6% at the end of April. Likewise, emerging markets continue to boom. The Chinese market achieved triple-digit growth during the first four months of the year. Arrivals thus reached a peak of 767% at the end of April. Arrivals from the Japanese market were consolidated by 52% while those from South Korea increased by 48%. Brazilian arrivals saw an increase of 31%, coming just after those from Russia (36%) and the United States (37%).
As far as overnight stays are concerned, the Tourism Observatory draws up a satisfactory assessment. The development noted in the first four months of the year highlights an increase of 19.3% compared to the same period of the previous year. In this regard, classified tourist accommodation establishments achieved between January and April 2017 more than 6.79 million overnight stays. Non-residents made more than 4.77 million overnight stays, up 24%. Residents, for their part, recorded 2.02 million overnight stays, an improvement of 10%. By destination, Marrakech and Agadir jointly generated 60% of overnight stays. Morocco’s two tourist centers showed an increase of 20% for Marrakech (2.46 million overnight stays) and 19% for Agadir (1.61 million overnight stays). Other destinations also performed well.
This is the case for Ouarzazate having seen its overnight stays recover by 38% over the first four months of the year. The city of Fez recorded 308,492 overnight stays, up 36% at the end of April. The third largest increase of the period was noted in the city of Tangier, an increase of 35%. Overnight stays in Rabat, Essaouira Mogador and Casablanca increased by 17, 18 and 16% respectively. The Tourism Observatory also indicates that the occupancy rate reached 42% at the end of April. It would have increased by 5 points compared to the same period last year. On the other hand, revenues generated by the tourist activity of non-residents in Morocco continue on their downward trend. To this end, the Observatory notes a drop of 4.7%. Revenue thus increased in one year from 17.8 billion dirhams to 17 billion dirhams at the end of April.
source: today.ma
