By Jesse Whittock
Morocco’s tourism minister has put a target of next year on the country achieving double-digit growth from UK arrivals, claiming the local industry was “ready to jump”.
“We have a long-term target of 2020 of getting one million British tourists to Morocco. It’s about 500,000 now but we think we have the right product to achieve the growth. We would like to achieve double-digit growth from British tourists from next year,” Morocco’s Minister of Tourism Lahcen Haddad said in an interview yesterday.
The plans are part of the country’s Vision 2020 strategy to boost inbound tourism.
Morocco avoided much of the chaos of the Arab Spring but Haddad admitted international inbound numbers had been “going up and down” due to a stagnant market. “We felt some knock on from the Arab Spring because in some people’s minds all of North Africa and the Middle East went up in flames,” he said.
Though “2012 was not a year of growth”, Haddad claimed Morocco had performed “a lot better than some other markets that have plummeted in the past two years. We’ve held our ground and we’re now ready to jump”.
However, the country will have to absorb the effects of ultra low-cost airline Ryanair’s decision to reduce services to Morocco by 34 flights per week earlier, which came into effect last month.
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