TOURISM – In an « extremely difficult international environment », the Moroccan tourism industry is holding up well. This is, in short, the message that the Moroccan National Tourism Office (ONMT) and the National Tourism Confederation (CNT) wanted to convey during the press briefing organized on Monday, December 19 in Casablanca, for the presentation of the sector’s annual report for 2016 and its prospects for next year.
According to Abderrafie Zouiten, director general of the ONMT, tourism receipts in foreign currency recorded a « historic peak » in 2016, with an increase of +4.1% to reach 59.4 billion dirhams at the end of November 2016.
« These revenues place the tourism sector in first position in terms of contribution to the country’s foreign currency reserves », explains the head of the office.
As for arrivals, “we should end the year with more than 1.5%” growth.
Six times more Chinese tourists
If « such performance » was made possible, it is mainly thanks to the adoption of a strategy of diversification of target markets, officials said. At the end of November 2016, arrivals of Russian tourists recorded an increase of 300% in Agadir.
Arrivals from China have increased sixfold since the decision to abolish visas for tourists from the country.
« The decision to abolish visas taken by King Mohammed VI has given a clear impetus, even if there is still no direct flight between China and Morocco and even if it is a country that is far away », comments Abderrafie Zouiten.
« Before this measure came into force, we received 800 to 1,000 Chinese tourists per month. Today, we are at 6,000, even 7,000 Chinese per month. Which means that next year, we should approach 100,000 tourists from China », he continues.
According to him, the « German market has also experienced extremely interesting growth since November, notably with the introduction of a new tour operator, FTI Voyages, and a partner with the Atlas Hospitality group. »
New air bases in 2017
The ONMT also announced that it was counting on several projects for the year 2017. The office first wants to strengthen air accessibility to the different Moroccan regions and put in place attractive prices to encourage tourists to go there.
To do this, new air bases should be gradually installed in Morocco. Two of them will be operational from April 2017 in Fez and Agadir, while others should follow in cities like Tangier and Marrakech. The names of the airlines concerned were, however, not specified by the office.
Also, according to Zouiten, « several companies have scheduled the Morocco destination, with in particular the return of Air France on the Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle-Marrakech line which will be a good opportunity to work on the hub and long-haul flights. This is also the case for other low-cost companies such as Air Arabia, EasyJet, Ryanair or even Visair which recently launched a Warsaw-Agadir line. It is the equivalent of practically 500,000 seats which will be injected in 2017 », he estimated.
In 2017, the ONMT also plans to « continue and strengthen » its digital communication by putting a new portal Visitmorocco.com online, which will be accessible in eleven languages, from January 2017. And to build a good reputation for Morocco on social networks, the office has taken the initiative of inviting several bloggers from different countries to discover Morocco. “It doesn’t cost us a lot, but the benefits are significant.”
The other « lever » on which the office and the CNT are currently working is that of « tourism in the hinterland », in other words tourism with locals, in rural or remote areas and which according to them is attracting more and more tourists around the world.
Source: http://www.huffpostmaghreb.com/2016/12/19/tourisme-maroc-onmt_n_13726004.html
