Marrakech, Associated Press’ topic of choice
A press delegation from the International Associated Press is visiting the city of Marrakech in order to draw up a report on tourism resorts in the Red City, and the hopeful recovery of the tourism sector that would occur after easing the precautionary measures, imposed due to Corona Virus, and opening the Moroccan airspace to international destinations.
This visit will present an opportunity to exhibit the busy air traffic that Al-Manara International Airport in Marrakech knows. The latter receives a myriad of flights daily from all over the world. Additionally, it would display the dynamism that a number of hospitality establishments have seen after the recession inflicted upon them by the global health crisis. Furthermore, it would enable the delegation to witness the rise that the tourism sector is likely to know and the encouraging offers made by stakeholders in the sector. The visit would include different locations ranging from the historic Jamaa El-Fna Square, which UNESCO has classified as an intangible heritage of humanity, to some institutions such as restaurants and bazaars, and focus on the contribution of tourists to the tourism recovery process. A report would be made about the Sahara of Afkai’s new product and the reasons behind its high demands while also shedding light on job offers and providing ways to improve services in order to attract more tourists.
On this subject, the expert in the field of tourism, Zubair Bouhout, explained that the campaign carried out by the Moroccan National Tourism Office to promote a number of Moroccan destinations both on the national and international levels is flourishing. As a matter of fact, Moroccan cities have become a popular destination for tourists this summer.
The expert added that the important initiative taken by His Majesty the King regarding the significant reductions in the fees of air and rail transport, in addition to compensating Moroccans abroad for maritime transport, and urging actors in the tourism sector to propose offers for reasonable prices will have a significant impact on the number of visitors this year. It’s worth noting that out of the 12.9 million people who visited Morocco in 2019, about five million and nine thousand (46%) are from the Moroccan diaspora.
The spokesperson pointed out that Morocco is the first country on the African continent to benefit officially from the reopening of airlines and the tourism recovery, which prompted the international agency “Associated Press” to make a report on the subject and choose Marrakech seeing that it ranks first in tourism at the national scale. The newfound revival of the tourism sector was achieved for a number of reasons, the most important of which is the good control of the pandemic. In fact, Morocco occupies the first place in the vaccination process in Africa, and the rate of infection and fatality has decreased significantly. The previous indicators affect the criteria for choosing tourist destinations, especially for Europeans.
Press and television reports play an important role in introducing international tourist destinations, seeing that they stress on the importance of the tourism product, while offering closer insight into the destinations. Such insight would cover security, stability, health safety, and the richness of the tourist product, along with the resorts and promising offers. The ongoing report would achieve all of the previous goals with Marrakech as its destination.
It should be noted that the Associated Press is a global news agency of general interest, headquartered in the United States, and founded in 1846. It is one of the oldest and most reliable agencies in the world, with 145 offices in the United States, 95 offices in 72 other countries, employees surpassing the number 4,000 from which 3,000 journalists who write and publish reports in five languages: English, French, Italian, German and Spanish. It includes nearly 1,500 American newspapers, and thousands of radio and television stations. As of 2009, it owns the industry’s most advanced digital photo network, an online news service available 24/7, premium TV news service, and the largest radio network in the USA.