Tourism growth keeps being erratic. Theoretically, there are more tourists arriving at border posts, but fewer customers staying at accommodation establishments. Thus, 4.04 million tourist arrivals were recorded at the end of April according to statistics on tourism in Morocco published by the Tourism Observatory, i.e. an increase of 13% compared to 2019, the reference year.
During the first four months of 2023, total overnight stays in 3-to-5-star tourist hotels and guesthouses, dropped by 8% (-9% for non-resident tourists and -7% for residents). The overall volume of overnight stays did not reach 8 million overnight stays, which is a record posted in 2019 during the same period. Per destination, with the exception of Marrakech and Essaouira, all other cities posted declines compared to the same period in 2019.
Thus, Agadir, Casablanca and Rabat saw their overnight stays drop by 18%, by 22% and by 10% respectively compared to the level for the same period of 2019. The hotels show an average occupancy rate of more than 44%. In comparison with 2019 as a reference year, this rate dropped by 4 points. Only the cities of Marrakech and Essaouira recovered the pace of 2019 for the first four months of the year. Overall, the most significant decreases were experienced in April with a negative variation of 4% in terms of arrivals, and 22% in terms of overnight stays compared to 2019. The city of Marrakech as a tourism capital saw its overnight stays decline by 7% compared to 2019. This is normal because the month of Ramadan has discouraged foreign and also domestic tourists from visiting the country. On closer examination, the growth in tourist arrivals concerns Moroccans Residing abroad much more, with an increase of 39%. Arrivals of foreign tourists declined by 2% compared to 2019. In terms of source markets, Spain and the United Kingdom showed a significant increase compared to the first four months of 2019, an increase of 42% and 24% respectively. The United States and Italy also posted an increase compared to the end of April 2019, increases of 3% and 7% respectively.
Moreover, the Moroccan National Tourist Board (ONMT) focused its interest on the American tourist market and has just signed partnership agreements with two major US groups specializing in luxury tourism, namely Signature Travel Network and Virtuoso, which group together more than 32,000 travel agents. The partnership between Moroccan tourism board and the two distribution networks provides for participation in trade fairs, periodic publications in the magazines of the two networks, brand content on various channels, in particular digital, in addition to networking and promotion. On the other hand, the German, Dutch, and Belgian markets experienced significant drops of 37%, 32%, and 30% respectively compared to the end of April 2019 according to statistics from the Tourism Observatory, despite numerous promotion activities undertaken by the ONMT. One of the explanations for the German market could be the bankruptcy of a large tour operator, namely the FTI group, which until 2019 which to serve more than 100,000 customers for the Morocco destination. There is also a deficit in terms of air connections, said a professional from Marrakech.
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