![Tourists at swimming pool, Radisson Blu Resort, Taghazout Bay Surf Village, Taghazout, Morocco, North Africa [Geography Photos/Universal Images Group via Getty Images]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/GettyImages-1465629278-scaled-e1689073175931.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
There has been a 21 per cent increase in the number of tourists who visited Morocco in the first half of 2023, the Ministry of Tourism said yesterday, when compared to the same period in 2019, before the outbreak of the coronavirus.
The ministry's statement said that 6.5 million foreign tourists visited Morocco, which generated 41 billion dirhams ($4.1 billion) in revenues during the first six months of the year, recording an exceptional growth of 42 per cent compared to 2019.
According to the statement, 1.4 million foreign tourists visited Morocco in June alone, an increase of 25 per cent compared to the same month of 2019.
The majority of the tourists came from Spain; an increase of 79 per cent compared to June 2019, followed by the United Kingdom, with an increase of 23 per cent.
The number of tourists from Israel rose 96 per cent compared to pre-pandemic levels as Rabat signed a normalisation agreement with the occupation state in 2020 and agreed to enhance tourism and other fields of cooperation.
On 31 January, Morocco said that 11 million tourists visited the country during 2022, as pandemic closures were beginning to lift across the world. It hopes to receive 26 million tourists annually by 2030.
Tourism was one of the hardest hit sectors by the coronavirus pandemic, while the government provided financial support more than once to workers in the field.
READ: Has the normalisation train reached the end of the line in Morocco?
Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.
Spotted an error on this page? Let us know
