Emerging tourism markets continue to fuel domestic tourism. China, for example, continues to direct its tourists towards the destination Morocco. The Kingdom has in fact observed a constant increase in Chinese arrivals since June 2016, the date of the abolition of visas for Chinese nationals.
After a year of this decision, the tourism department is observing a peak in Chinese arrivals at border posts. Although the number of these visitors was not revealed in the latest sector statistics bulletin, the tourism observatory notes a 546% increase in Chinese arrivals in the first half of the year. The Japanese market, for its part, performed well in the first six months of the year.
The flow of Japanese tourists increased by 46% at the end of June. That of South Korea increased by 42%. Arrivals from the United States showed an increase of 27% during the half-year. At the same time, traditional source markets have resumed their enthusiasm for the Morocco destination. During the first half of the year, 1.41 million French tourists visited Morocco, marking an increase of 5% compared to the same period last year. The German market consolidated its tourist arrivals to Morocco by 12% at the end of June when arrivals from the Dutch market increased by 8% compared to an increase of 7% in Spanish arrivals. These results have contributed significantly to consolidating the performance of Moroccan tourism activity. The latter was marked by a half-year increase in arrivals of 9%. In the first half of the year, nearly 4.6 million tourists were welcomed to Morocco, including 803,793 in June. Foreign tourists capture more than half of these arrivals (57%). They represented 2.70 million tourists at the end of June, up 14% compared to the same half of last year. Arrivals of Moroccans from around the world consolidated by 3%, representing the return of 1.87 million MRE in the first half. In terms of overnight stays, the tourism observatory observes a significant improvement. An increase of 18% was noted in the first half, i.e. 9,805,003 nights spent in classified tourist accommodation establishments.
Resident nights showed an improvement of 22% compared to 8% for residents. By market, German overnight stays increased by 49%, followed by Americans with 28%, while the French saw their overnight stays increase by 18%. Commenting on these increases, the tourism observatory indicates that the performance recorded in terms of overnight stays has benefited the various tourist destinations in Morocco. Many of them recorded double-digit growth during the semester.
Thus, Fez and Ouarzazate improved their positioning by 38% each. Tangier posted a tourism performance of 29%, followed by Marrakech 19%, Agadir 18% and Casablanca 12%. Note that the occupancy rate strengthened by 4 points during the half-year, reaching 40% at the end of June. Despite this dynamic, travel revenue practically stagnated during the half-year. The amount generated by the tourist activity of non-residents in Morocco stood at 26.38 billion dirhams compared to 26.47 billion dirhams a year earlier.
source: today.ma
