Tourism

Of the SR100bn ($26.66bn) that the government’s tourism strategy estimates will be needed over a 10-year period to develop the industry, the state expects to cover about a third, with the remaining two-thirds to be provided by the private sector. Public-private partnerships (PPPs) are seen as the way to achieve this, and thus the government is...

A number of projects to be jointly carried out with four Gulf countries were unveiled in early May 2014 by the Moroccan minister of tourism, Lahcen Haddad, at two major tourism events in Dubai, the Arabian Hotel Investment Conference and the Arabian Travel Market. Under its Vision 2020, Morocco aspires to become one of the top 20 tourist...

One of the focal points of Morocco’s ambitious Vision 2020 programme is sustainable tourism. The country has no shortage of natural features to leverage as tourism attractions, and it also boasts 10 national parks and 160 sites of biological and ecological importance. The ecotourism segment, however, remains at a nascent stage and represents...

The tourism sector has grown at a steady pace in recent years, and with the Ministry of Tourism’s aim of increasing the number of arrivals to 20m by 2020 under the Vision 2020 plan, considerable investment in accommodation and associated public infrastructure is required. The 20m target will require a total bed capacity of 375,000. By way of...

While the economic crisis in Europe and the fallout from the Arab Spring elsewhere in North Africa have continued to impact the tourism industry in Morocco, resulting in more modest growth in tourist arrivals and length of stays, the sector has nevertheless seen moderate expansion in activity. The tourism sector has undergone a major shift in...

LANGUAGE: Spanish is the official language and is spoken throughout the country. However, there are as many as 62 dialects, the most widely spoken being Nahuatl, Maya and Mixteco. Though English is spoken in many places, especially among government officials and high-ranking executives, it is...