In the latest ranking of tourist destinations with the greatest number of hotel projects in progress, produced annually by W Hospitality Group, Morocco remains in the top five in Africa.
According to this American hotel group which has just published its 2018 Pipeline Report, Morocco has 33 hotel units under construction for a total of 5,456 rooms.
This keeps it in fourth place just behind Ethiopia, which is making a considerable catch-up effort with its 5,717 rooms under construction and gaining four places compared to its position in 2017.
Despite its performance, Morocco remains far from the two countries which have occupied the first steps of the podium for several years, namely Egypt and Nigeria. These two countries together have around a hundred hotels under development totaling 13,636 and 9,603 rooms respectively.
As for Nigeria, its ranking also owes pride of place to the megaprojects of new cities such as that of EKO Atlantic developed on an artificial island of 10 million square meters near the capital Lagos and which has, in addition to commercial and residential spaces with a capacity of 400,000 housing units, numerous hotels including a 4-star establishment with 500 rooms.
But Morocco still surpasses South Africa (5th in this ranking). Even if the number of hotels under construction there is greater than that of Morocco (37 in this case), these units have fewer rooms (barely 4,311 units). Morocco is also the leading Maghreb country ahead of Tunisia and Algeria which are respectively sixth and seventh with just over 4,000 rooms under construction.
Overall, Africa remains among the most attractive continents for tourism investors with a total of 76,332 rooms under construction, an increase of 14% compared to 2017 and, above all, almost double in just four years.
Several cities such as Cairo, Adis Ababa, Sharm El Sheikh, Lagos and Algiers have several thousand rooms which will soon enrich the hotel offerings of their respective countries and the continent in general.
Contrary to what one might expect, no Moroccan city appears in the top 10 African cities in this area (while overall the country is in 4th position), which is explained by the geographical diversity of the Moroccan hotel offering with the emergence of several tourist centers.
