3.5m tourists visit Morocco in five months

The number of foreign tourists who visited Morocco during the first five months of 2015 has reached nearly 3.5 million, a fall of 1.1 per cent compared to the same period last year.

According to a Ministry of Tourism report released yesterday, the majority of tourists came from France, Spain, Germany and Britain.

Italians ranked fifth, followed by Belgians, Dutch and Americans.

While the number of French tourists decreased, there was an increase in the number of Spanish, British and German tourists.

The number of Moroccan tourists travelling within the country reached 199,000, an increase of 6.8 per cent compared to the same period last year.

Over 480,000 Moroccans work in the tourism sector which is worth more than $6.88 billion to the country’s economy. Tourism is considered the top source of foreign currency in the country according to the prime minister.

Last year, more than 10 million tourists visited Morocco.

Morocco is currently working on a tourism development plan called Vision 2020 which aims to attract 20 million tourists a year by 2020.