Tourist activity in Morocco, although shaken by Dame Covid for two years, seems to have resumed its flight. Hoteliers, tourist transporters, travel agents, restaurateurs… finally, all the players in the sector who revolve around the tourist thing are happy to be satisfied with this recovery, which was confirmed this summer.
However, the smiley could not be complete on the faces of our tourism professionals. In question are the visa applications that France refuses to grant 70% to Moroccans and which has meant that today many of them are asking for reciprocity through societal requests in order to impose a visa on French people wishing visit the Kingdom. Some Moroccan politicians and lawyers even ask ” return the favour ” to French diplomatic interests in this ” silent crisis who does not want to tell between Rabat and Paris.
Less radically, however, some recommend at least imposing on people of French nationality, who, paradoxically, do not need a visa to travel to Morocco (stay not exceeding 90 days), eligibility for a electronic visa for Morocco in response to France’s decision to reduce the number of visas by half (Morocco, Algeria) or by a third (Tunisia) for Maghreb nationals.
According to data published by the French Ministry of the Interior, in 2020, Moroccans obtained around 98,000 entry visas to France, compared to 346,000 in 2019, around 303,000 in 2018 and 295,000 in 2017.
This story, of visas and reciprocity if by chance is the possibility, makes the national tourism sector cringe because of the importance of the French market in its calculators, especially since Morocco is emerging from a lean two-year period where he suffered huge financial losses.
In this regard, Zoubir Bouhout, an expert in the field of tourism, strongly emphasizes, in a statement to Hespress about the important place ” occupied by France in the Moroccan tourist economy, through the number of tourists that the Kingdom drains in summer from this destination. It is a huge influx of foreign currency for Morocco which we cannot do without. ».
Notwithstanding the “political” side of the thing and dealing only with the economic aspect, Zoubir Bouhout will say that in 2019 ” Morocco had received nearly 13 million visitors, distributed as follows, 7 million international tourists and 5.9 million Moroccans from the diaspora “, noting that” of the 7 million internationals, Morocco had received around two million French tourists (more than 28%)”. The tourism expert said that “ more than 25 billion dirhams belong to the French market alone in terms of annual revenues from the tourism sector, which, for example, amounted to 78.747 billion dirhams in 2019, which constitutes 32% of financial revenues ».
« France contributes approximately 28% of foreign arrivals to the tourism sector and 32 % of revenue in hard currency Zoubir Bouhout added, noting that “ the tourism sector in Morocco has been very dependent on the French market in recent years, especially in light of the growing competitiveness of regional tourist destinations, especially Turkish ones ».
He further notes ” French tourists make up a significant percentage of current tourists to Morocco during the summer, as they help relaunch a group of tourism professions affected by the consequences of the pandemic, and provide professionals with financial income which is not to be neglected by these difficult times and in the current world political situation ».
According to the expert, foreign exchange earnings more than doubled in 2022. “ At the end of June, there was a receipt in foreign currency of more than 28 billion dirhams. If we compare it to the sum of less than 9 billion recorded in 2021, that gives an increase of 206% ” he argued.