Reports MOROCCO MARKET
Essential information and facts about Morocco:
Capital Rabat
Total Area Population Median age
Ethnic Groups Languages
Currency Chief of State
446,550
sq.km 34,314,130 29.7 years
Religion Muslim (99%) Arab-Berber (99%)
Arabic (official), Berber languages and French
Dirhams (MAD)
Government type Parliamentary Constitutional Monarchy
King Mohammed VI (since 1999)
Head of Government Prime Minister Saad-Eddine al- Othmani (since 2017) PDJ
Unemployment
Elections Monarch is hereditary. Prime Minister appointed by Monarch from the majority party following elections. 10 per cent
Tourism Te number of visitors to Morocco per year -12.2 million
In 2001 the Plan Azur was launched - a large scale project initiated by King Mohammed VI aimed at internationalising Morocco. Te aim was to increase the number of tourists from four million in 2001 to 10 million by 2010. Te plan was to also create six coastal resorts for holiday home owners and tourists, five on the Atlantic coast and one on the Mediterranean – Mediterrania Saidia (Berkane), Mazagan Beach Resort (El Jadida), Mogador Essaouira, Port Lixus (Larache), Taghazout Bay (Agadir) and White Beach (Guelmim). Te plan also included upgrading airports and adding new train and road links.
Atlantic and Mediterranean coastlines with around 3.6 million inhabitants in Casablanca, 1.8 million in Rabat and 1.1 million in Tangier.
Tourism is a steady growth sector and Morocco is becoming one of the worlds most sought after tourism destinations and is the top hot spot in all of Africa. Tere was a big investment in this sector back in the 1970s and since the 1990s tourism has become Morocco’s largest source of foreign currency.
Morocco has a 1,835km sea border with the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea and 2,362km of land boundaries with Algeria and the Western Sahara and Spanish enclaves Ceuta and Melilla.
Back in 2008 there were around eight million tourists with total receipts of $7.55bn. Last year there were over 12.2 million tourists (compared to 9.2 million in South Africa). Tere’s a wide range of accommodation from €20 per night up
P182 NEWSWIRE / INTERACTIVE / MARKET DATA
to €300 per might from luxury levels hotels to riads.
Tere are some 251,200 beds registered with the Ministry of Tourism, whilst three to five star hotels and club hotels account for almost 50 per cent of this number. Back in 2010 there were only 3,000 beds registered. Marrakech has a 30 per cent share of these beds whilst Agadir has 16 per cent followed by Casablanca with eight per cent.
Back in 2001 the Plan Azur was launched - a large scale project initiated by King Mohammed VI aimed at internationalising Morocco. Launched as part of Vision 2010 the aim was to increase the number of tourists from four million in 2001 to 10 million by 2010.
Te plan was to also create six coastal resorts for holiday home owners and tourists, five on the Atlantic coast and one on the Mediterranean – Mediterrania Saidia (Berkane), Mazagan Beach
Resort (El Jadida), Mogador Essaouira, Port Lixus (Larache), Taghazout Bay (Agadir) and White Beach (Guelmim). Te plan also included upgrading airports and adding new train and road links.
Te project was to develop 160,000 beds plus 10 golf courses whilst attracting international groups to the country for development.
But the Plan Azur got off to a slow start mainly due to financing problems and waning interest from developers. Some 18 years after its launch it still hasn’t been fully completed. Only Mazagan, Saidia and Taghazout have opened their doors. Essaouira and Larache are delayed and White Beach is a forgotten project.
Te Plan Azur was renewed in the Ministry of Tourism’s new updated Vision 2020 project. Vision 2020 was launched by the Moroccan government back in 2010 to make the country one of the top 20 tourist destinations in the
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