Travel Weekly
By Joanna Booth
The UK is a top priority market, and Morocco hopes to welcome one million Brits annually within three years, says tourism minister Lahcen Haddad.
Last year half a million UK tourists visited the destination, and this year’s figures are up 17% year on year from 2013.
A new promotional campaign, ‘Much Morocco’, will launch in January, designed for the first time by a UK rather than a French advertising agency – a sign of the Moroccan National Tourist Office’s commitment to the UK market.
There are enough hotel rooms to feed the hoped-for growth, but airlift is the biggest challenge, according to Mr Haddad, despite the fact 83 flights per week link the UK and Morocco.
More than 35 of these flights are from London, and though options are also available from some regional airports – including a new easyJet service between Glasgow and Marrakech which launched last week – the Moroccan National Tourist Office is working to encourage carriers to launch routes from a wider range of regional airports, in particular charter and low-cost airlines.
“It is also a challenge for us to differentiate ourselves politically from the rest of our region,” said Mr Haddad.
“We need to make sure tourists understand that Morocco has made choices which have paid off in terms of safety, security, and tolerance.”
He cited the number of big budget movies filmed in recent months in Morocco – which include the latest installments from the Batman, Mission Impossible and James Bond series – as a vote of confidence in the destination’s stability.
Alongside a consumer campaign, the Moroccan National Tourist Office also plans to run a range of activities with travel agents.
