According to Moroccan Tourism and Craft Industry Minister, Mohamed Boussaid, over 7 million tourists visited Morocco in 2007. This is a 13% rise from the year 2006, which yielded some 7.7 billion USD.
Hotels recorded 16.9 million visitor nights, that is a 3% increase compared to the previous year.
The French continue to top the list with 2.85 million tourists, followed by the Spaniards (1.6Mn), the Belgians (431,000), the British (419,000), the Italians (370,000), the Dutch (361.000) and the Germans (296,000).
Except for the southern cities of Ouarzazate (that posted a 3% decrease)and Agadir whose figures have remained stable, all the other tourist destinations received more tourists. Casablanca topped the list with 9%, followed by Fez showing a healthy increase of +8%. Other results announced were - Rabat (+5%), Marrakesh (+5%) and Tangier (+3%).
The minister also said tourism has become the chief source of investments and jobs creation in the Kingdom, as well as a driving force for sustainable development, contributing 8% to the GDP.
As we have reported before on The View from Fez, Morocco has set itself the goal of attracting 10 million tourists by 2010 with a strategy dubbed "Vision 2010" which provides for creating 160,000 beds, thus bringing the national capacity to 230,000 beds. It also aims at creating some 600,000 new jobs.
Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news
2 comments:
Aller on arrete de se plaindre et on regarde ce reportage sur un marocain qui bosse à la nasa !
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x48gh1_marocains-du-monde-kamal-oudrhiri-n_news
It's great to see more tourists visiting Fez - I hope airlines take note and start adding more direct flights (particularly from the UK!)
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