Morocco Aims to Triple French Tourism, Targeting 30 Million Visitors by 2030

"You are arriving in a Morocco that is transforming as a whole and in several areas. We ended 2024 with 17.4 million tourists, making us the top destination in Africa. This is an unprecedented position. Once we achieved this place, we looked at what our next challenge could be. We are looking at the Mediterranean basin," declared Achraf Fayda before the 400 participants at the EDV congress. The next objective of the ONMT is to cross the 26 million mark, thanks to the Africa Cup of Nations (CAN Morocco 2025), then 30 million by 2030, the year when Morocco will host the Football World Cup, jointly with Spain and Portugal.

The Director General of the ONMT explains: "Our offer is much closer to that of Portugal, Spain or Greece than to Africa. Except that we still have a lot of room for improvement. We welcome half a tourist per inhabitant. For comparison, the ratio is three tourists per Portuguese or Greek, and two in Spain." Now, Morocco wants to focus on the French market. Last year, some six million French tourists visited the kingdom. The ONMT aims to double this figure. "The proximity that unites our two peoples, both linguistically and culturally, reinforced by Moroccan hospitality, is a precious asset. All this explains why we are not satisfied with this figure of 6 million French. We want to double it, even triple it. France is not a mature market. We must absolutely get out of this preconceived idea," he indicates.

In this perspective, connectivity between the two countries will be strengthened. Last week, the ONMT signed a partnership with Transavia which will launch 14 new routes to Morocco from next summer. To increase its service, Morocco is also relying on Royal Air Maroc. "In the next 12 months, we will receive 18 new planes. For the French market, our first internationally, we plan to very quickly double our offer to Casablanca, and quadruple it on point-to-point lines, to respond to this rapidly growing tourist demand," announces Ilham Kazzini, director of the global commercial division of the Moroccan airline. These new aircraft will mainly serve French cities from Marrakech, Agadir and Dakhla.

RAM will see its fleet increase from 50 aircraft in 2023 to 130 by 2030, and to 200 in 2037. This is with a view to making Morocco an essential destination and attracting the maximum number of visitors, particularly French, during CAN 2025 and the 2030 World Cup. "We want to organize the best CAN in history. We are aiming for 500,000 foreign supporters between December 21, 2025 and January 18, 2026. However, the majority of the diasporas of the qualified teams live in France. On this occasion, we will multiply the lines between our two countries. We will therefore offer them to come and see a match, make a stop here before continuing for those who wish to their countries of origin," details the manager.

Morocco is working to double its airport capacity by 2029, going from 32 to 74 million passengers. "In the past, our tourist offer was mainly concentrated on two or three destinations: Fez, Agadir and Marrakech. Today, we want to bring out a new Morocco, a new destination. The 6 cities that will host these major events benefit from a dedicated portfolio, specifically allocated to infrastructure and tourist activities," adds Achraf Fayda. Likewise, the kingdom is working to increase its hotel capacity and to "regulate the rental of tourist accommodation, in the spirit of the Airbnb model, but also accommodation in bivouacs in the desert or with locals. We want to more than double the beds," informs the Director General of the ONMT.