After the abolition, in June 2016, of visas for Chinese nationals wishing to travel to Morocco, the number of arrivals increased exponentially. In 2018, there were 180,000 to set foot on Moroccan soil while their number did not exceed 10,000 in 2015. Traveling for the most part on tourist circuits of the imperial cities of 5 nights/6 days within the framework of several European destinations, these tourists were long acclaimed until reaching a certain disenchantment three years after the boom. At the end of July 2019, the number of Chinese tourists who visited Morocco was 80,000, or 2% growth compared to the period from January to July 2018. Could we achieve at this rate the 500,000 arrivals promised by Mohamed Sajid, former minister of tourism, for 2022? In reality, this market is experiencing major problems. According to Hayat Jabrane, a travel agent specializing in the Chinese market for twenty years, this market is today weighed down by the informal sector.
The new travel agents are Chinese
“Before the abolition of the visa, I received 17 to 20 groups of Chinese tourists per month. Last year, I received 4 in total, including artists, TV crews and architects. Chinese tourists are usually spendthrifts and do not negotiate package prices. During a visit a few years ago, one of my Chinese groups spent 1MDH with a major luxury luggage brand at the Morocco Mall. But, from now on, the Chinese established in Morocco play the role of travel agents. They have their Chinese guide paid a monthly salary while the accompanying person is paid 1,400 DH per day, transport their clients via minibuses that they purchased themselves, and have even bought restaurants. All they need is investment in hotels to completely lock in this market,” laments Ms. Jabrane, who is trying to move into the African and Indian markets. Previously, Chinese people paid travel agents in advance before arriving in Morocco. Today, the payment deadlines requested by Chinese TOs are between 60 and 90 days, which hotels categorically refuse. “Since the bankruptcy of the British TO Thomas Cook, hotels fear ending up with debts and are asking for payment in advance,” she notes. Faouzi Zemrani confirms this trend. “Chinese payment terms are 3 to 6 months, while the Foreign Exchange Office requires a maximum period of 60 days for the repatriation of currencies. At a time when no customer is traveling on credit, Chinese travel agents are generating cash at our expense,” adds this receptive travel agent who has abandoned this market due to lack of profitability. Chinese nationals based in Morocco, acting as intermediaries, deal directly with hotels and pay bills in cash. The hotel welcomes this business with open arms even if the group generally only spends one night in each of the cities on the circuit.
Purchase of restaurants, riads and complete market locking
For Aziz Lebbar, owner of the Zalargh hotels hotel group in Fez and Marrakech, the Chinese certainly pay a high price compared to other nationalities but spend nothing in the hotel. “The Chinese pay within 5 to 6 months. This is why we work with large travel agencies with significant working capital. Chinese tourists, for their part, pay the full costs in advance and spend little on site. They have very little cash because all payments are made via their Wechat account. They only buy small, inexpensive souvenirs,” says Mr. Lebbar. In Chefchaouen, a city very popular with Chinese tourists, riads and restaurants have passed into the hands of Chinese investors based in Morocco. The Chinese workforce is known to be very profitable and hardworking. A professional testifies: the chef of a Chinese restaurant in Marrakech works 12 hours a day and spends the night in the restaurant on a bench.
“The city of Chefchaouen is full of tourists especially after the visit of Priscilla Chan, wife of Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, who posted her photos in Chaouen on social networks. But the business hardly benefits Moroccans. The same scenario happened in Barcelona where the Chinese bought restaurants and bazaars, cornering this market which had become very closed,” explains Jalil Madih, CEO of the travel agency ALM Business & Luxury travel, which for its part is exploring the niche of luxury tourism from China (a reservoir of 20 million hyper-rich tourists). For Ms. Jebrane, control of Chinese intermediaries must be strengthened so that Moroccan professionals and the State can benefit from the benefits of this market. “Morocco has tourist brigades which can control those accompanying groups of Chinese. You only need to visit the Hassan II Mosque to see the buses of Chinese tourists arriving via nationals established in Morocco, hiring guides and drivers without residence permits or employment contracts. The brigade must demand the names of agencies, vouchers, licenses and approved guides… The absence of control further encourages the rampant informality,” she proclaims. Result: Moroccan incoming agencies are considered expensive by Chinese TOs (mostly state-owned). Faced with an offer from intermediaries who speak “the same language”, the deal is quickly concluded. And this, despite the ONMT signing a 3-year co-marketing agreement with the Chinese online agency C Trip (which aims to strengthen the flow of Chinese tourists to Morocco).
Note that only 10% of Chinese have a passport. That is 150 million tourists spread across the global tourism industry, a large part of whom travel to Asia. The opening of the Royal Air Maroc flight directly linking Casablanca to Beijing from January 2020 (with a total of 47,000 seats/year offered in the long term) will allow the national aircraft manufacturer to gain a share of the market. But what about the rest?
source: lavieeco.com
