Moroccan Tourism businesses sigh a breath of relief at opening of international traffic

Morocco has opened its airports to international passenger traffic with most of tourism emitting countries giving a brim of hope for tourism professionals who have borne the brunt of Covid-19 travel bans.

After a tough 2020 year in which tourism revenues fell by 53.8% to 36.3 billion dirhams ($3.8 billion), travel receipts further dropped by 65.7% to 6.4 billion dirhams only in the first four months this year.

But the recent resumption of flights with key European and North American countries augurs well for the summer season in Morocco.

Meanwhile, Morocco’s tourism promotion office launched a campaign, dubbed Ntla9awfbladna or let’s meet in our country, on social media platforms and national media outlets in response to calls by tourism professionals to promote internal tourism.

Today, a third of hotel clients in Morocco are nationals and ONMT hopes to bring that share to 50%.

An ONMT study has shown that 60% of Moroccans wish to travel this summer.

Hotel and tourism-related businesses in general have called on the government to extend stipends to workers beyond June and to defer tax payments and facilitate access to loans to enable them to cope with the crisis which has long lasted.

Tourism represents 7% of Moroccan economic activity, employing more than half a million people and generating $8 billion in foreign currency inflows in 2019, when 13 million foreigners flew into the North African kingdom.