Moroccan tourism up by 7% this year

2007-07-04

Morocco welcomed 2.26m tourists between January and May 2007, up 7% over the same period last year, MAP cited Department of Tourism figures as saying on Tuesday (July 3rd). Marrakech remains the country's most popular destination, and the number of visitors there increased by 12%, followed by Casablanca (9%) and Agadir (3%). These three cities account for the majority of the increase in the number of tourists. French citizens topped the list of tourists during the period in question with 873,000, followed by Spaniards (479,000), Brits (175,000), Belgians (96,000), Italians (95,000) and Germans (91,000). Only the Belgian and Arab markets posted a decline in terms of tourist nights during the period. Morocco has launched major tourism development projects, including the $2.4 billion Mazagan project which is part of Vision 2010, a co-ordinated effort to attract 10m tourists by 2010. Tourism receipts remain a main source of government revenue and foreign proceeds, and they were up 8% to 19.8 billion dirhams in the first five months of the year.