Morocco’s Tourism Industry Grinds to Halt Amid Coronavirus Pandemic

"There are no more planes. In some hotels, we barely find two occupied rooms. No restaurant is open or any nightclub. We’ve never seen this before," confides to Sputnik Lahcen Haddad, a deputy and former Minister of Tourism. An opinion shared by the academic and tourism specialist, Moez Kacem. "For the moment, the situation is almost at a standstill, in hibernation, like all global tourist destinations," he adds.

According to the researcher, what makes this situation particular is that "we lack visibility on the end of this crisis". "In financial crises, we can make estimates because financial mechanisms are more controlled," he explains. On the side of the National Tourism Council, the forecasts are in the red. The council predicts an overall drop of nearly 6 million tourists (-98%), resulting in a total loss of 11.6 million overnight stays for the next three months (-80%).

"The National Confederation of Tourism specifies that the shortfall could amount to more than 50 billion dirhams (4 billion euros) for the sector, of which only 13 billion dirhams (1.3 billion euros) should fall to the hotel industry. All this knowing that tourism revenues normally amount to nearly 76 billion dirhams (7.1 billion euros)," says Moez Kacem.

To reverse the trend, Lahcen Haddad says he has asked the head of government if it was possible to rent the hotels. The former minister proposes to transform them into confinement, quarantine or health centers. "In this way, we could both keep them in operation and have significant bed capacity for coronavirus victims," he believes.