Morocco Property News: Morocco expects 9.4 million tourists this year, 6 percent higher than in 2009 but slightly below a target of 10 million set before recessions hit its major markets, the tourism minister has said.
Tourism is the biggest source of foreign currency for Morocco and despite the fact that global tourism contracted 4.3 percent last year and fell 6 percent in Europe (the origin of most of Morocco’s foreign visitors), Morocco has managed to keep visitor numbers growing by 6.5 percent.
“Achieving 94 percent of our (2010) goal, bearing in mind that we just went through one of the biggest global crises in a century, is a very satisfying result,” Tourism Minister Yassir Znagui told reporters late on Monday. Znagui said the number of visitors rebounded by 16 percent in the first three months of 2010 to 1.72 million, night stays grew by 7 percent to 3.7 million and tourism income grew by 12 percent to 10.2 billion Dirhams (about 900 million Euros). (more…)