Morocco and the impact of mass tourism

Recently The View from Fez looked at the downside of mass tourism. In an opinion piece, (Not in My Back Yard) our Special Affairs Editor, Helen Ranger, mused about the changing face of Marrakech and asked if the same thing was going to happen across the country. It was a timely question. By 2011, low cost airline Ryanair plans to begin a total of 20 routes to Morocco, shuttling a million passengers a year in and out of the country.

As Helen Ranger suggested, the impact of mass tourism, for all its downside, is an ethically vexed question. An influx of tourist dollars or euros is very welcome in a country where over 20% of the urban population is unemployed - a greater number underemployed. The World Bank places the average yearly salary at around $1,740, less than twice what an average tourist spends in four days.

But the upside is real estate. The property developers sense a golden opportunity and one they are not going to let slip. The tourism authorities report that over fifty hotels and some thirty golf courses are at various stages of construction. In the old Medina of Fez there are said to be 120 houses being renovated simply to turn them into guest houses.

A recent edition of the New York Times pointed out that the tourist authorities in Morocco are, naturally, happy with the direction things are going: The government has also begun a $58 million advertising campaign, packaging Morocco as an exotic-yet-safe destination for Europeans: cheap, warm and steeped in tradition — along the lines of how Mexico is perceived in the United States. The spin: hear the calls to prayer, haggle over a tea set and then unwind at the beach. Or forget the medina altogether and just play golf.

The New York Times article pointed out that not everyone is as enthusiastic about the coming tourist blitz.

The country’s Islamist party frequently rails against hotel casinos, restaurants that serve alcohol and the growing gay club scene, according to Ignacio Cembrero, a Rabat-based correspondent for El País, the Spanish newspaper. And even the typically tolerant majority of Moroccans may become fed up if they see too many men without shirts. A rooftop pool, for instance, can be especially problematic.

“You have women swimming in bikinis or topless sunbathing,” said M’hammad Benaboud, director of the history department at the University of Téetouan. “That scene might be shocking to the woman hanging clothes to dry next door.”

Intellectuals like Mr. Benaboud wonder if it is possible to bolster tourism without turning the decayed architectural gems and virgin coasts into a made-for-tourists stage set.

“We have to take our culture and architecture seriously,” he said. “Can’t we conserve historical houses instead of transforming them into bazaars, hotels or restaurants?”

Frequent travelers like María Teresa Prieto, 50, a Madrid business executive, are also concerned about the future. She shivers at the thought of weekend revelers barreling into historic cities and blithely snapping pictures of elderly men in hooded caftans.

“How do I put this without sounding elitist?” she said as she checked her suitcase in Madrid for a flight to Marrakesh. “Let’s just say that if I’m smoking during Ramadan and someone asks me to put out my cigarette, I do and I apologize. Another type of tourist might not.”

Alonso de la Corte, a 34-year-old exporter, spent his August vacation in Agadir, and he said he hoped the package-tour scene there — complete with darts at the pool, disco nights and buffet dinners — doesn’t foreshadow the changes in store elsewhere.

“My hotel was filled with French families sitting on a lounge chair all day without getting to know the country,” he said on his return to Madrid, sunburned and disappointed by everything but the price: 360 euros for a week’s lodging, half board and flights.

But anyone who thinks Morocco is careering too fast down the highway of mass tourism should speak to Judy Lee, a 33-year-old London lawyer who recently traveled with five friends to Essaouira for a bachelorette party. During the taxi ride from Marrakesh airport, the driver stopped at his family’s house for tea. Naturally, he invited Ms. Lee and her friends to join.

“We felt really bad but we said, ‘No,’ because we didn’t want to prolong it,” she recalled. “We’re girls from the city, and we wanted to get there, but I guess in Morocco things move at their pace, not yours.”

See NYT article here: New York Times.

Tags: Morocco Fes, Maghreb news