Moroccan Tourism Operators: Border Reopening is Not Enough

Rabat – Morocco’s tourism operators have expressed for years their dissatisfaction with governmental measures to “save” and reform the sector. For them, the ongoing COVID-19 crisis has just exposed the long-standing structural issues burdening the advancement of Moroccan tourism.

The World Health Organization confirmed the then new and strange virus, COVID-19, on January 12, 2020. Yet Morocco was not impacted by it until March 2, 2020, when the country’s Ministry of Health reported the first two COVID-19 cases in the country.

After the announcement, the authorities imposed a state of emergency and a lockdown limiting mobility and thus the spread of the virus.

In December 2020, American think tank Brookings estimated a loss of 581,000 jobs in Morocco during the third quarter of 2020, adding that five million workers in the country’s informal economy had by then lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic.

Victims of a never-ending pandemic

Tourism operators, including professionals owning or working at hotels, inns, travel agencies, as well as independent travel agents, consider themselves the main victims of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

With their livelihood depending on people’s mobility, the reinforcement of the lockdown and the state of emergency was particularly devastating news for their economic activities.

To alleviate the impact of the economic fallout of the COVID crisis, King Mohammed VI launched in March 2020 a $1 billion fund to modernize health infrastructure and support social segments heavily impacted by the virus outbreak.

However, the measures were not enough to save the tourism sector. With “tourism 100% dead,” one of the interviewed hospitality operators told Morocco World News (MWN), workers in the industry were facing a “real crisis,” with “direct” and “immense” impacts.

As the sector generates 7% of the country’s GDP, the lockdown led to a 71% drop in tourist arrivals in 2021 compared to 2019, representing an annual loss of 20 million travelers and MAD 90 billion ($9.59 billion) in foreign exchange profits in 2019-2021 period, the minister of tourism reported in late January 2022.

In addition to the country’s losses, owners of travel agencies, hotels, and inns have continued to face tremendous charges like water and electricity bills, as well as wages and taxes, among others. With no income, they fell into more debt and felt hopeless, leading some to resort to suicide to end their suffering.

As they grew increasingly desperate, travel agencies and tourist carriers operators organized sit-ins and protests in front of the Ministry of Tourism in January 2022 to voice their concerns following the implementation of the ministry’s emergency plan.

Over 250 travel agents shouted together “save the sector, open the borders,” travel agency owner Najat Dahhaj told Morocco World News. In a statement on January 3, the Moroccan National Association of Travel Agencies said Moroccan tourism professionals “feel abandoned to their fate after two years of this suffocating crisis.”

The statement came as disgruntled tourism workers prepared to take to the streets to vent their frustration at the government’s decision on November 29, 2021, to extend border closure due to the emergence of the Omicron variant.

The government had initially announced border closure for two weeks until December 13, leading to the stranding of Moroccan nationals abroad and foreigners within Moroccan territories.

But with authorities now calling for the border closure and travel ban to remain in force until at least the end of January — and probably beyond, until Morocco felt relatively confident in terms of containing Omicron — protests for the reopening of borders multiplied across the country. The apparent general public mood of COVID fatigue and deep-seated frustration with border closure led the government to reassure and promise that it would soon lift its COVID travel ban. And with the resumption of international flights on February 7, tourism professionals now maintain that border reopening is no longer the dominant obstacle to the prosperity of the Moroccan tourism sector.

Mohamed, a travel guide from Tafraout, Tiznit Province, described the border reopening decision as a “band-aid solution,” a quick and temporary fix to more rooted and structural issues pertaining to the informal character of the sector and state negligence.

What’s in the ministry of tourism’s emergency plan?

In response to growing social distress caused by the pandemic, the minister of tourism, Fatim-Zahra Ammor, introduced a MAD 2 billion ($216 million) emergency plan to rescue the tourism sector and support its professionals.

The strategy extends MAD 2,000 ($215) compensations and defers National Social Security Fund (CNSS) charges for six months to all employees in the hospitality sector, including tourist carriers and classified restaurants.

It exempts hoteliers of 2020 and 2021 business taxes and 2021 and 2022 interim interest rates for bank loans. Tourist carriers are also spared of bank interest rates as part of the emergency plan. These measures cover the period of their inactivity as the state will pay the charges.

Additionally, the government allocated MAD 1 billion ($108 million) to finance hotels’ maintenance, renovation, and training plans preparing them for border reopening.

The adopted measures resulted from meetings between Ammor, the National Confederation of Tourism (CNT), the Ministry of Economy and Finance, and the Professional Group of Banks of Morocco (GPBM).

A flawed support system

While the plan seems to have ended the struggle of tourism operators, the majority of them did not benefit from it or were only lucky enough to benefit partially from it.

The dominance of informal activities in the tourism sector represents a major limitation to the optimal implementation of crisis relief mechanisms such as the emergency plan.

While informal, undeclared hospitality operators across Morocco are known to local authorities, the informal economy is embraced as a norm.

The high unemployment rates — which the European Investment Bank in 2019 recorded at 13.5% for women, 24.9% for youth in general, and 39.2% for urban youth in particular — demonstrate the need for an inclusive operating economic system.

Additionally, low literacy rates in rural areas represent a major challenge to integrate local youth into the formal economy where reading and writing skills are required as a bare minimum.

In 2018, Morocco’s National Observatory for Human Development (ONDH) reported that rural adults have, on average, 2.2 years of education. The statistics are shocking but represent the forgotten reality of rural areas.

The Moroccan government has launched initiatives to address the issue of school dropouts and has encouraged families to educate both their sons and daughters.

Morocco’s National Initiative for Human Development (INDH) partnered with the Ministry of Education to generalize pre-schooling education and educational supervision as well as build more boarding schools in rural areas in the 2019-2021 academic year.

While these measures are essential to counter illiteracy in the long term, adults currently operating in the informal sector need more support to integrate formal sectors. Recent projects such as Awrach temporarily address such systematic issues.

Informal economy: burden or/and need?

Mohammed, an accredited tour guide for natural spaces, told MWN that illiteracy is one of the obstacles to the training and institutionalization of tour guides in the country. Although faux guides are fluent in several languages such as French, English, and Spanish, some of them do not know how to write or/and read.

This represents a challenge for qualified faux guides seeking to take the state-designed written test required for accreditation.

As a former faux guide himself, Mohammed reported that most accredited guides operating across the country went through a phase of training as faux guides. Thus, state accreditation is not the only measure to evaluate the competencies of the tour guides.

Mohammed added that the accredited and non-accredited tour guides can work together to meet the regular high demand by mostly foreign tourists.

He gave the example of an initiative launched in Imlil, Al Haouz province, that organizes the activities of both groups to meet touristic needs in the region. Non-accredited guides accompany the accredited tour guides and benefit from in-field training.

As faux guides are dominating the sector, the ministry should provide appropriate training for them, incorporate additional options for accreditation tests, and organize their activities to ensure equal opportunities for all tour guides across the country, Mohammed argued.

The left behind

The new emergency plan benefitted legally protected professionals in travel agencies, hotels, inns, tour guides, among other operators.

Only professionals registered at the National Social Security Fund (CNSS) before February 2020 have received the MAD 2000 compensation, leaving new operators excluded from any governmental support. Najat Dahhaj and 30 other travel agency owners in her surroundings missed the deadline by a few days.

New travel agencies have to request licensing from the ministry of tourism to start operating and registering in CNSS. As Najat’s provisional license came out in March 2020, she and her employees were not eligible to receive state support based on the program’s criteria.

Furthermore, non-classified inns and small-scale hotels did not benefit from the state support for taxes and bank interest rates exemption. “Only three, four, and five-star hotels” profited from the social fund, Mohammed told MWN.

Majid Barouch, a hotel owner in Tafraout and Secretary-General of Tafraout tourism association, confirmed Mohammed’s assessment. He said that his 16-rooms hotel did not receive additional funds besides the MAD 2000 compensation.

For him, too, the compensation is “not enough to meet the expenses of rent, living costs, etc.” Due to the devastating economic fallout of the pandemic, he decided to downsize the staff from nine to four employees including the manager; he also cut salaries by 50%.

In addition to small hotels, only inn owners and employees registered with CNSS before February 2020 received the MAD 2000 compensation, the only support offered to them.

Bassou, an inn owner in Imilchil, Midelt province, reported to MWN that mountain tourism stopped in the country due to the COVID lockdown. Naturally, this led to the annulment of thousands of reservations. On top of the colossal financial losses Imlilchil tourism workers suffered, Bassou said he and four other registered inn owners in Imilchil had to pay taxes and other expenses.

He also noted that inns in Midelt province are not classified by the ministry of tourism. Some of them have operated in the region for years but are not recognized by the ministry. As a result, 12 of the inns in the region do not pay taxes while only five do in the form of personal income taxes or limited liability company (SARL) taxes.

The absence of classification and follow-up by the Ministry of Tourism reflects the unstructured nature of the Moroccan tourism industry in certain regions and sectors.

Although the Imilchil region was severely hit by the pandemic, its economy witnessed a gradual revival after the government allowed inter-cities and inter-regional mobility; but it has not yet returned to normal.

Morocco’s National Tourism Office (ONMT) launched three ‘Ntla9awFbladna’ (let’s meet in our country) campaigns to promote domestic tourism amid border closure. The campaign helped some regions such as Imilchil — originally a favorite destination for European tourists — to gain a new clientele base: Moroccans.

But domestic tourism does not generate enough income for professionals in the sector, Majid stated, adding that this type of tourism is exercised over a short period of time such as holidays or weekends with a limited and low budget.

Like tourism professionals, Moroccans in all economic sectors were hit by the COVID-19 crisis, making them look for cheap options while traveling.

This phenomenon could be explained by the considerable drop in the Moroccan purchasing power and the rise in poverty rates in the country over the past two years.

According to the World Bank‘s latest data, the Moroccan purchasing power parity (PPP) decreased by $560 between 2019 and 2020, while the percentage of “vulnerable” population categories ($5.5 PPP) reached 26.7% in 2021 and is expected to return to pre-pandemic levels in 2023.

Normalizing COVID?

The news Moroccan operators have been anxiously waiting for came yesterday, February 7, as Morocco welcomed its first travelers after almost three months of flight ban. But could one day reverse cumulative losses of two years?

The obvious answer is no. As Morocco continues to record thousands of new COVID cases and dozens of deaths weekly, the country might still not be considered a safe travel destination for some tourists fearing COVID-19 infection. However, with the normalization of the virus in several European countries — and beyond — there is a hope to gradually revive the North African country’s tourism industry.

Some professionals in the sector strongly oppose the government-imposed requirements to enter Morocco. Majid said that the requirements convey a “don’t come” message to tourists. He also called for the adoption of the European approach to COVID-19 — seeing it as a “seasonal flu.”

Per the Moroccan government’s list of requirements for travelers wishing to enter Morocco, passengers are obliged to present a vaccination pass and a negative PCR test taken less than 48 hours before plane boarding.

The travelers will also take rapid tests upon arrival and might be subject to random PCR tests. Positive cases will have to be confined at the place of their residency.

While the government argues that the measures are “necessary,” tourism professionals consider them to be harsh and uncalled for.

Additionally, the operators collectively recall tourists’ doubts about coming to Morocco as governmental decisions provide little time for preparation in case of border closure.

Many tourists were stuck in Morocco after the government announced the country’s first lockdown in March 2020. As an act of support in those first weeks of COVID panic, hotel owners in Merzouga hosted stranded tourists free of charge.

Similarly, after the sudden border closure in November 2021, Moroccan nationals abroad and foreign tourists in Morocco had no way to return home. To address the issue, Morocco launched the “Maakoum” (with you) operation to repatriate Moroccans stranded in Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

Moroccan and foreign authorities have since succeeded in organizing several operations to help repatriate Moroccans abroad and foreigners in Morocco. Yet the experience, especially Morocco’s sudden and last-minute decisions to close its borders, made some tourists lose trust in the North African kingdom, according to interviewed tourism operators.

As the future is uncertain and the governmental decisions are unpredictable, tourists might abstain from visiting the kingdom for a long time, they argued.

With Morocco being out of the international tourism market for almost two years, the country is “left behind” compared to countries that remained open to tourists such as Spain, Greece, Egypt, Peru, and Indonesia, tourism operators concluded.

If Morocco learned anything in the past two years, it would be that it is hard to predict developments with the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. The border reopening decision provides hope for a gradual return to normal.

However, the interviewed operators appeared to suggest, the future of the tourism sector will remain uncertain unless the government approaches the virus as a regular seasonal flu and launches structural projects to create an inclusive Moroccan economy aligned with the objectives of the country’s much-touted New Development Model.