Rabat – Moroccan authorities will mobilize eight ferries making trips from three French and Italian ports for this year’s Operation Marhaba.
Scheduled to start today, June 15, Operation Marhaba is an annual initiative by the Moroccan government to facilitate the return of Moroccans residing abroad (MREs) for summer vacation in Morocco. In 2019, over 2.5 million MREs came to visit Morocco during the summer season.
While special flights to facilitate the return of MREs have already begun as part of this season’s Marhaba Operation, the ferries are set to arrive only at the end of the week in the ports of Tangier and Nador.
Nezha El Ouafi, the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs in charge of MREs, said that there will be a total of eight ferry services running via the operation.
El Ouafi also announced three ferries connecting Tangier-Med with Sete in France, and Genoa in Italy, two ferries connecting Nador and Sete only, and two additional ferries connecting Tangier-Med with the French city of Marseille.
Read also: Morocco’s National Tourism Confederation Meets to Plan 2021 Operation Marhaba
The ferries will carry between 20,000 to 27,000 passengers every week, according to the minister. Operation Marhaba is expected to cost the government approximately $227 million (MAD 2 billion), El Ouafi added.
Following King Mohammed VI’s instructions for this year’s Marhaba campaign, Morocco’s Ministry of Equipment is also working towards further decreasing ferry and airplane ticket prices for Moroccan residing abroad.
To ease the MREs maritime travel experience this summer, the ministry is currently discussing potentially diversifying embarkation ports on the European side of the Marhaba Operation, Moroccan state media reported.
According to the report, Morocco is in talks with Portuguese authorities to list the Portimao port in Portugal as a point of departure for Tangier-Med.
Some estimates suggest that 2021 could see as many as 3 million MREs return home for their summer plans, in part due to the government’s efforts to slash the prices of tickets for both air and maritime travels.
