Tourism: The sector at its lowest in 2021
Faced with the global health crisis caused by the covid-19 pandemic, the tourism sector is one of the sectors that has been hit the hardest. A year after the peak of the pandemic, activity is still as deteriorated in Morocco with 2.5 million arrivals against an average of 13 million in normal times.
While Morocco has launched Operation Marhaba for the summer season and encouraged Moroccans living abroad to come and spend their holidays in the kingdom thanks to significant tariff reductions, the activity figures for the first 9 months of 2021 remain. well below average.
Just over 2 million Moroccans living abroad returned to Morocco between January and September 2021, compared to an average of 5.9 million per year, according to figures from the Tourism Observatory.
As for foreign tourists, they were 540,000 to have spent their holidays in Morocco during the first 9 months of the year against an average of 7 million per year.
By way of comparison between 2019, that is to say a year before the pandemic and 2021, a year after the vaccination and a well-established machine to deal with the virus, “nearly 13 million entered Morocco, including 7 million internationals and nearly 6 million MRE. This year the opposite has happened, the MRE outnumber the internationals. There has been a reversal of the situation, ”Zoubir Bouhout, tourism expert and president of the Ouarzazate Provincial Tourism Council, told Hespress FR.
If the state was able to save the tourist season somewhat after a blank year in 2020, the results of all these steps remain, to say the least, insufficient. In terms of overnight stays, the results of the activity put them at 4 million overnight stays for nationals (including MRE) and 1.7 million for international visitors for a general total of 6 million overnight stays.
"It is true that these figures only reflect the first 9 months of the year, but one thing is certain, we have felt this drop, there is no doubt," he said. .
This decline in international tourism activity is mainly explained by the restrictions imposed on travelers by the Moroccan authorities, but also by the "instability" of health situations in the countries of origin of tourists.
In addition, "this climate of uncertainty" has not helped motivate foreign tourists to spend their holidays in Morocco "which has been known for its decision-making at the last minute, without notice", he argues. he, noting the latest example, with the United Kingdom, Germany and Russia.
"When someone plans their trip months in advance and is told about changes like this at the last minute, they are automatically afraid of getting stuck," said the tourism expert.
In the case of the most motivated tourists, “they organize their trip by making stops. For example, the British can come to Morocco through a country in zone A such as Spain, and they will only have to present their health pass, and if they come from France, they will have to add a PCR test. since France has moved to the B list, ”Bouhout points out.
But in reality, few tourists dare to make these stopovers by preferring direct flights, which translates into a drop in reservations and consequently flights to Morocco. Thus, the airport of Marrakech-Menara, supposed to serve the tourist city par excellence, has experienced in recent weeks continuous drops in terms of attendance and flights.
Over the past two months, the airport has fallen from 655 weekly flights in mid-October to 516 flights in the week of November 15-21, and yet another drop for the week of November 22-28 with 488 flights.
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