Morocco to build six new seaside resorts
Morocco, Economics, 4/26/2002

Morocco on Thursday launched a media campaign to publicize to Moroccan and foreign enterprises a project to build six new seaside resorts along its Mediterranean and the Atlantic coasts.

The campaign is meant to attract Moroccan and foreign investors and make them contribute to the promotion of the resorts located in Taghazout (in the region of Agadir), Saidia (on the Mediterranean shore), Khmis sahel and Haouzia (in the Province of El Jadida, south of Casablanca), Mogador (Province of Essaouira, 450 KM south of Rabat) and Plage Blanche (in the southern Province of Goulmim).

The project is assessed to cost $5.2 billion. The state will contribute 50 percent and the private sector 50 percent. According to previous statements by a senior tourism official, major international leisure groups and hotel chains have shown interest in the project.

Speaking during the campaign launch, Moroccan Prime Minister, Abderrahmane Youssoufi, said the project feasibility studies were finalized and related tenders will be launched "imminently."

He said Morocco boasts so many assets to be a major tourism country. Among these assets he mentioned the country's geographic location, its cultural and history heritage, its political stability and its attachment to the values of tolerance.

He also mentioned the advantages provided by the Moroccan investment charter to would-be investors.

In early 2001, the Moroccan government and the private sector signed an accord providing, inter alia, for the construction of 80,000 hotel rooms and for investing between 80 and 90 billion Dirhams (between $7 and $8 billion) in the sector.

Part of the efforts made to reach and ambitious goal of 10 million visitors by 2010, Morocco is projecting to increase its hotel capacity to 115,000 chambers by that date.

Tourism is vital to the economy of Morocco, a country of 30 million enjoying a rich, ancient culture, exquisite handicraft, thousands of miles of coastline, deserts and snow-capped mountains. The industry employs about 628,000 people and is second only to expatriate remittances as an earner of international currency.

The sector earned the country 21.64 billion DH in 2000 (nearly $1.90 billion) from about 2.5 million visitors, up 10.3 percent from 1999.

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