New Flights to Morocco

This winter low cost airline Transavia France will offer a new link between Nantes and Agadir

As of December 23, 2017, Air France's subsidiary will offer two flights a week between its base in Nantes-Atlantique and the airport of Agadir-Al Massira, operated in Boeing 737-800 with 189 seats.

Departures are scheduled Tuesday and Saturday at 7:10 am to arrive at 9:15 am, return flights leaving Morocco at 10:00 am will land at 14:15.  Tickets will cost 70 Euro one way.

Transavia will compete with TUIfly Belgium on this route, which will only be operated on Saturday from 8 January to 24 February 2018.

According to Hervé Kozar, Deputy General Manager of Transavia France, "The opening of this new destination in winter 2017 demonstrates once again the strong attractiveness of Morocco and confirms our desire to offer travellers of the Nantes region a greater diversity of choices in terms of destinations".

In other airline news,  the Moroccan National Tourist Office (ONMT) has signed a partnership agreement with German tour operator FTI in Munich to operate flights to Marrakech.

This agreement concerns the organisation of four flights per week to Marrakech from four German cities, Hanover, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt and Cologne.

This partnership is of paramount importance in that it promotes the city of Marrakech with a tour operator known in the market, explained to the ONMT.

It will promote new flights and reinforce others already launched under previously signed agreements.

Abderrafie Zouiten

Director General of the ONMT Abderrafie Zouiten, ''This is a real breakthrough as it is the first time that Marrakech will be scheduled with four weekly charter flights departing from the German market".

The number of tourists from the German market, including members of the Moroccan community, reached 278,000 tourists at the end of June, an increase of 12%.

SHARE THIS!

Alright Gandhi - Free Concert in Fez

Berlin based group Alright Gandhi in Concert will give a free concert on Friday (February 12th) at 7 pm at the ALIF Riad, 6 Derb Drissi, Batha

Alright Gandhi formed in Berlin 2014, a place where people come to from all over the world to do whatever they feel like and nobody minds. Kalle Enkelmann (DE), Pietro Fornara (IT) and Rosa Gerhards (UK) met each other in the chaos of underground jam sessions and psychedelic jazz nights to play music on wild and crowded weekdays.

Lyricist and singer Rosa Gerhards

The band became an intimate alternative, a little oasis of songs visited by friends and musicians recorded by Kalle as the songs materialise. Alright Gandhi exists by the same motto as its carefree environment: if it smells good tastes good sounds good, say yes! But it goes far away from heavy industrial Berlin. Full of acoustic, natural sound, it's the calm voice reflecting how all that freedom feels.

SHARE THIS!

Fes ~ The Mother of All Cities - Eberhard Hahne

FES - Die Mutter aller Städte  (The Mother of all Cities), by Eberhard Hahne, published by Terraviso-Verlag in Cologne, is a beautiful homage to the Medina of Fez, by a man who has spent almost 40 years visiting and photographing the city. While the text of the book is in German, the photographs speak a universal language. With his tribute to his favourite city in the world, Eberhard has created an unique portrait of the Medina of Fes

Fez is the most important and most mysterious of the four Moroccan royal cities. Founded 1200 years ago by the great grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, the Medina has become the largest oriental town in the world. Here, medieval life has been salvaged until the present time. The lovingly designed picture book describes, supplemented by 40 texts, the socio-cultural cooperation, the craft guilds, markets, private and spiritual life of this islamic city. The UNESCO declared Fes 1981 as a world heritage - Eberhard Hahne

Hahne has divided the book into five chapters, corresponding to the five pillars of Islam. The chapters deal with the determinants of this city: the population, the craft, commerce, privacy and the Spirituality. His pictures show the confrontation with its historical counterpart, the immutability of the subject.

Quotes from the travel literature of the past centuries underline this strange timelessness. One reads a quote from Leo Africanus from the 15th century and sees what is described in a splendid adjacent photo.

The most interesting and successful  aspects of the book are the inclusion of old historical photographs and numerous texts describing the peculiarities of everyday oriental life.

I just love to drift, getting lost in the seemingly endless maze of lanes with. Here I discover again and again to me unknown places, markets, workshops that inspire me. For a freshly brewed mint tea I like to go into the cafes around the Bab Boujloud. The small market Souk el Henna I visit on any tour of the Medina. To relax I like to go in the Jardin du Public to walk and then drink a freshly squeezed orange juice in the nearby Café Nouria - Eberhard Hahne

DETAILS

FES - Die Mutter aller Städte ISBN 978-3-00-045709-8
Price: 40 Euro plus 5 Euro postage (Europe)
Print length: 205 pages,

Links:
Eberhard Hahne's Website
YouTube - inspect the book
Amazon (German)


SHARE THIS!

Moroccan Tourism Bounces Back

After a sluggish start to the year, tourist arrivals in Morocco increased by 15% in July. The source countries show a positive effect of promotions, particularly in the German speaking countries. Morocco hosted 79.9% more tourists from Austria, 19.8% from Germany, 6.2% from the UK and 10.5% from North America

More Germans and Austrians visiting Fez now the weather has cooled down

The catch up has been welcomed by tourism professionals some of whom had expected the beginning of year slowdown to continue.

According to a statement from the Moroccan Ministry of Tourism, six million tourists visited Morocco during the first seven months of this year.

The same upward trend was observed for overnight stays. In classified tourist facilities, they increased by 12% compared to July 2014. This increase in overnight stays has particularly boosted the major tourist destinations in the kingdom such as Casablanca and Marrakech.

The cultural capital, Fez, has experienced a slightly slower recovery, but with the cooler weather and accommodation bookings picking up in September and October, tourism professional are upbeat about the coming months. Ironically, visitors report that they are delighted to be experiencing the delights of Fez without hordes of tourists.

Major German magazine Geo Saison recently featured Fez

Foreign exchange tourism revenues have also recorded an increase of 16% compared to the same month of the previous year, reaching more than 5.975 billion dirhams.

Observers believe that the tourism sector in Morocco suffers from two negative factors - the ailing European economy and regional unstable security situation following the terrorist attacks on Tunisia.

According to the Tourism Ministry the recovery recorded last month was due to the promotion policy, communication and tourist packages adopted by Morocco, and the diversification of tourist markets adopted by the tourism administration. Tourism professionals are quick to acknowledge that the Ministry of Tourism is working well for the industry.

SHARE THIS!

Mixed Results For Moroccan Tourism in 2013

At first glance 2013 appeared to be a great year for tourism in Morocco, with large numbers of visitors. The down side, according to to Ministry of Tourism, is that the visitors spent considerably less money than in the previous year

The same observation is made by riad owners in Fez. Sue Bail, from Riad Rcif, says "There is a huge difference now. Before visitors would return to the riad with bags of shopping. These day, however, they appear to be limiting themselves to cultural rather than shopping trips."

Many more tourists - spending less

Morocco welcomed 10.5 million tourists last year, a gain of seven percent, but the money they spent in a country whose cash-strapped government relies on them actually dipped.

Tourism Minister Lahcen Haddad confirmed the trend when speaking to the media recently. "The number of tourists who went to Morocco in 2013 reached 10,046,000," he said on Friday.

Ministry figures showed that revenues from non-resident tourists eased 0.5 percent to 57.5 billion dirhams (5.1 billion euros/6.9 billion).

Morocco was badly affected by the financial crisis in Europe, its top trade partner, aggravating the economic challenges facing the government of Islamist premier Abdelilah Benkirane.

The rise in arrivals last year was due, notably, to an influx of tourists from Italy, Germany and England, with the number of holidaymakers from those countries rising by between 12 and 15 percent.

By contrast, tourist arrivals from France and Spain grew by just four percent.

Marrakech and the coastal city of Agadir were the most popular destinations, receiving two-thirds of the visitors.

Tourism is the second-largest economic sector in Morocco. It accounts for around eight percent of GDP, employing some 500,000 people, and the government hopes to see the number of visitors rise to 20 million by 2022.

Haddad said in November that the government planned to levy a small tax on all flights out of the country, which he said would be used to promote it as a holiday destination.


SHARE THIS!

German Wings Over Morocco

Germanwings, a wholly owned Lufthansa subsidiary, is set to fly into Morocco on a regular basis. The Germanwings routes announced for the coming 2012 Summer Flight Schedule feature the Moroccan destination of Nador. 

Demand for flights is such that the airline is starting flights to Nador six weeks earlier than the actual planned launch date for the new route. 

Germanwings originally announced that Nador in the north-east of the country, would be included in the route network from 25 May. Now the first flight has been brought forward to 30 March.

This summer, Germanwings will initially fly to Nador every Friday, then from 25 May, every Tuesday and Friday. Using connecting flights, the routes Berlin – Nador (from 30 March 2012), Munich – Nador (from 30 May) London-Heathrow – Nador (from 30 March), Dresden-Nador (from 30 March) and Leipzig – Nador (from 30 May) can also be booked at germanwings.com.

However, be aware that all of these flights are operated via Cologne/Bonn with optimised transfer times.

The city of Nador is very popular with Moroccans as a holiday destination. The Mar Chica Lagoon (pictured above) with Nador on its western bank and both the Djebel Sebt and Djebel Tazoud volcanoes are particularly breathtaking beauty spots.

 SHARE THIS!

German tourists on the increase in Morocco

In 2006 the number of German tourists visiting Morocco rose by 10% over the numbers for the previous year. According to figures revealed by Jamal Kilitoa, a Moroccan Tourism official in Germany, some 260,000 German tourists visited Morocco in 2006. i.e. a 10% increase compared to 2005,

Speaking at the 41st International Tourism Exchange, Kilitoa claimed that the good figures are the result of Morocco's communication campaign and travel agencies training.

Morocco is represented at the 41st edition of the ITB, held in Berlin on March 3-7, by about a hundred exhibitors, travel agencies and representatives of regional tourism councils. 10,932 exhibitors from all over the world are represented in the meeting.

Some 6.4 million tourists visited Morocco in 2006 compared to 4.4 million in 2002, according to tourism ministry.

Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news