Morocco’s Tourism Sector Hits Record Highs in 2024

Morocco remained one of the most popular destinations for foreign tourists in 2024. Like the summer season, the influx was there during the year-end holiday period, rejoiced Hamid Bentahar, president of the National Confederation of Tourism. In an interview with Hespress, he called for working to maintain tourism activity during low season periods and to work for the development of tourism activity in all regions.

The official noted that most regions suffer from seasonality and assured that the Confederation will contribute to the achievement of the objective of an annual occupancy rate of 70% for these regions. Despite difficult conditions, the tourism sector has obtained "positive results," added Bentahar, stressing that the target of 17 million tourists set in the 2023-2026 roadmap was reached in 2024, two years earlier.

This objective was "easy to achieve," said Zoubir Bouhoute, a tourism expert, who called for an upward revision of these ambitions. With this performance, Morocco becomes "the first country in Africa in terms of the number of tourist arrivals, surpassing Egypt in the first ten months of the year," he rejoiced, noting however that in terms of revenue, Egypt is in the lead with more than $14 billion against $11 billion for Morocco.

The city of Marrakech welcomed the most visitors in 2024. Over the last two weeks of December, the ochre city’s airport "received 1,400 flights, with a daily average of around 200 flights," Bouhoute said, estimating that this influx of visitors had "a significant impact on international tourism. If we add domestic tourism, Marrakech will have recorded record figures." It is followed by Agadir, Casablanca and Tangier.