Morocco’s Tourism Industry Faces Bleak Outlook Amid COVID-19 Restrictions

The cocktail of gloom in the sector is impressive: restaurants, cafes, shops and supermarkets closed at 8:00 p.m., a nationwide night curfew from 9:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. except in exceptional cases, a ban on parties and public or private gatherings, as well as the total closure of restaurants in Casablanca, Marrakech, Agadir and Tanger for a period of three weeks. The hope of a relaunch for the few tourism operators in these cities, very popular with national and foreign tourists, is dampened. "Tourism professionals have been disillusioned," laments Faouzi Zemrani, vice-president general of the National Confederation of Tourism (CNT).

Only the destination of Dakhla is promised a bright tourism future and deserves to be preserved from all excesses and particularly mass tourism, notes the vice-president of the CNT who is counting on vaccination schedules and the strong desire to travel of tourists, deprived since last March, for a beginning of return of the smile.

Thus, "Morocco must prepare for it now and set April 2, 2021 as the probable deadline for the reopening of our skies to airlines," he says, urging his own to get to work: "The latest good news concerning the recognition by the United States of America of our sovereignty over our southern provinces and the opening of several consulates, will make it, in the very near future, a destination of choice for a tourism respectful of the environment and therefore sustainable".

He is counting on the program contract for the revival of the tourism sector covering the period 2020-2022, which includes a series of support measures, in order to give it a strong impetus and instill a new dynamic.