Tourism is the biggest source of foreign currency for Morocco. It is one of Europe's poorest southern neighbors and has boosted economic growth in recent years but still suffers from widespread poverty.
Global tourism contracted 4.3 percent last year and fell 6 percent in Europe, the origin of most of Morocco's foreign visitors.
Morocco managed to keep visitor numbers growing by 6.5 percent but tourism income slipped 5 percent to 52.8 billion dirhams ($6.30 billion).
The global credit crunch also made it harder for the north African country to lure foreign investors, slowing the roll-out of a chain of new resorts that it needs to build to keep tourism numbers growing.
"Achieving 94 percent of our (2010) goal, bearing in mind that we just went through one of the biggest crises in a century, is a very satisfying result," Minister Yassir Znagui told reporters late on Monday.
Znagui, a former London banker who took up his new job in January, has pushed to win new investors for faltering seaside hotel and leisure projects and close deals with tour operators outside Morocco's traditional markets.
The kingdom is still heavily dependent on tourism from France and Spain and lacks hotel capacity outside the southern city of Marrakesh and Agadir on the Atlantic coast.
Znagui said the number of visitors rebounded by 16 percent in the first three months of the year to 1.72 million, night stays grew by 7 percent to 3.7 million and tourism income grew by 12 percent to 10.2 billion dirhams.
Morocco sees 6% tourism growth in 2010
Publication Date:
Tue, 2010-04-27 23:23
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