The Star.com
Jessica McDiarmid
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
It takes about 20 minutes to walk around the outside of the newly minted Morocco Mall.
Not far from the new IMAX theatre, pilgrims kneel on the beach before a rock outcrop in which there’s an ancient tomb believed to have healing powers. Tourism websites warn that “unusual” practices such as animal sacrifices sometimes take place here.
Ancient and ultra-modern jostle for position everywhere in Morocco. Donkey carts bump with 2012 model cars, shepherds in traditional robes talk on cellphones. And now there’s the mega mall, a $260 million behemoth perched on Casablanca’s coastline that’s billed as Africa’s largest.
Financed by Moroccan retailer AKSAL Group and the Saudi Al Jedaie Group, the mall opened last December. Its developers hope to draw some 14 million visitors a year to shop at Gucci and Zara, drink coffee at Starbucks and Second Cup and eat at McDonald’s and Burger King.
Morocco was the most-visited country in Africa in 2010, with just under 9.3 million tourists, according to the United Nations’ World Tourism Organization. If the 14 million target is reached, it would rival Disneyland and Niagara Falls. It would dwarf the number of people who go to the Louvre in Paris and the Great Wall of China. West Edmonton Mall, the largest in the world for some two decades and Alberta’s No. 1 tourist attraction, sees 30 million a year.
Said Akourir, a shopkeeper in Casablanca’s medina, remains skeptical. He said most western tourists come to see ancient markets, handcrafted goods, the Sahara and the Atlas Mountains.
“(Tourists) left malls in their own countries,” said Akourir. “They’re coming here for something different.”
Most Moroccans — a quarter of whom live below the poverty level — can’t afford to shop at the mall.
A spokesperson for the mall did not respond to questions sent via email.
At the mall’s perimeter, an adolescent boy hovers, puffing a cigarette and offering passersby rides on his skeletal pony for a pittance. Inside, women in immaculate white uniforms whisk invisible debris from the tiled floor, upon which one can examine their reflection.
Employees stand outside some of the mall’s 350 stores, watching straggling customers pass by. A small crowd gathers around the mall’s two-storey aquarium, where, for the equivalent of about $3, visitors can ride in a glass elevator up through the middle of a tank that holds 2,000 species, according to the young woman operating the lift.
At Starbucks, Tariqk Chafni stands with a giant thermos strapped to his back, handing out free cups of coffee. He’s trying to entice Moroccans, generally found in streetside cafes sipping espresso and reading newspapers, to embrace “the Starbucks community.”
Chafni, like about 30 per cent of Moroccan youth, was unemployed for a long time before landing this job. “This was a good thing for me, for a lot of people.”
He says business has slowed down since opening day. Most customers are Moroccan, says Chafni, and the concept of a mall takes time to get used to.
“It’s new in Morocco,” says Chafni. “Many people don’t know what it is. Some find the place very expensive.”
Yassine Zaourate says the mall is “only for rich people.” As a helper in a market, he doesn’t count himself among them.
“The clothes, very expensive. The food, very expensive. It’s not for poor people.”
Zaourate loves it, though. He made the 20-minute trip from central Casablanca a couple months ago. While he couldn’t buy anything, he “saw something so strange, so new, so amazing” — his first mall.
Jessica McDiarmid is freelance journalist.
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