Rabat - The tourism industry is one of Morocco’s most prominent sectors, constantly seeking ways to attract more tourists into the country.
Rabat – The tourism industry is one of Morocco’s most prominent sectors, constantly seeking ways to attract more tourists into the country.
A new initiative from the Moroccan National Tourist Office (ONMT) plans to attract tourists from Scandinavian countries, Turkey, Germany and Russia.
The ONMT’s Board of Directors will hold a meeting on Monday, which will be chaired by Tourism Minister Lahcen Haddad and ONMT’s CEO Abderrafie Zouiten.
The agenda will reportedly include the launch of a strategy to attract Scandinavian, Turkish, German and Russian tourists.
The new strategy “will also be based on the opening of many branches of ONMT including one in Turkey, a country that sends nearly 15 million tourists around the world annually,” the Tourism Minister said on Sunday.
The ONMT “will consolidate its traditional markets, while displaying a particular dynamism to those originating from northern Europe,” he added.
Morocco’s initiative to boost tourism in 2016 will face a sluggish tourist market in Europe. The new proposition will require a total budget estimated at MAD 1.4 billion.
“The ONMT will pay particular attention to Russian and German tourists whose visits to Morocco in 2015 registered a growth of 6 and 8 percent, respectively,” the minister stressed.
Morocco, which hosted 34,000 Russian tourists in 2014, aims to reach 800,000 tourists from the Scandinavian, Turkish, German and Russian markets by 2020, Haddad stressed.
Morocco is considered the safest country in North Africa for tourists, according to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The British Foreign Office ranked the North African country among the safest countries worldwide, last November.
The risk of terrorist threats in Morocco is lower than in some European countries, such as France and Spain, according to the same source.
