2023-09-12 12:42:16
Three days after the terrible earthquake that struck the center of the country, rescue workers are still racing against time to find possible survivors under the rubble. Tuesday morning, the death toll already exceeded 2,800. The earthquake occurs in the middle of the tourist season, a crucial sector for the Moroccan economy which was barely starting to get its head above water after the pandemic.
« Marrakech thrives on tourism. If there are no more tourists, people won’t work and they won’t be able to eat. I think of all my friends who have hotels and guest houses: the worst thing would be not to make them work. For them it would be almost worse than an earthquake. » The words of this resident of Marrakech collected by RFI on Sunday summarize the concern of many residents of the affected regions who fear that once the dust settles they will find that they have also lost their main source of income.
At this stage, the professionals in the sector that RFI was able to contact are rather reassuring and are not observing a wave of cancellations. But to understand why a resident of Marrakech comes to say that the absence of tourists would almost be “worse than an earthquake”, we must understand the importance of the sector for Morocco and for the Marrakech region in particular. Of the Maghreb countries, Morocco is the one that depends most heavily on tourism: before the pandemic the sector represented between 8 and 10% of GDP, and supported nearly one in 10 Moroccans. It was also a source of foreign currency. , according to analysts at BNP Paribas tourism revenues represented 15% of current revenues.
A sector which had already suffered greatly from the pandemic
Performances which combine with the imperfect because tourism had already suffered greatly from the Covid-19 pandemic: in 2020 tourism had experienced a dizzying fall: 80% fewer tourists compared to 2019. The situation had barely improved in 2021. The real rebound began last year: In 2022 there were… Eleven million travelers, or a little more than 80% of the 13 million tourists recorded in 2019 before Covid. 2023 was to be the year of confirmation, of return to normal. The government has made a lot of effort to bring back tourists, at the start of the year Rabbat was even delighted to have exceeded pre-Covid attendance records. This earthquake therefore comes at the worst time, a few weeks before the peak of the tourist season in Marrakech at the end of September.
The situation is all the more worrying as Marrakech happens to be the most touristy region of the country. The city of Marrakech alone attracts one in four tourists to Morocco. If the old town and the labyrinthine alleys of the Medina that millions of tourists walk through each year have been relatively preserved, the mountainous regions south of Marrakech have been particularly affected.
A poor region, popular with hikers and trekkers
The images and testimonies that reach us suggest the extent of the damage. Not only are the homes on land but also the villages and bivouacs which welcomed trekkers and hikers in summer and skiers in winter. However, this poor region of Morocco is particularly dependent on tourism. If there are few cancellations according to travel agencies, however, stays planned in this region are redirected to other provinces of Morocco spared by the earthquake. The emergency is to find survivors and it is obviously out of the question to clog the roads at a time when emergency services are still struggling to reach certain isolated villages. Then will come the time of mourning and reconstruction. But thirdly, the question of the return of tourists to these mountainous regions will also arise, as well as that of support for residents deprived of their main source of income.
For this, Morocco should be able to count on Moroccans in the diaspora. According to figures from the Ministry of TourismMoroccans residing abroad have represented for ten years almost half of the tourists recorded each year. The country has made great efforts to develop domestic tourism : there were almost 8 million last year, more than before the pandemic. Seeing the demonstrations of solidarity from the Moroccan diaspora in recent days we have every reason to believe that Moroccans abroad will continue to be there.
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