A Chinese delegation of operators and journalists is currently visiting
Morocco from June 6 to 16 to discover the country’s tourist potential. They are traveling to six main tourist cities in hopes to strengthen cooperation between the two countries in the sector.
The delegation, which consists of top executives of Chinese travel agencies and television, radio and electronic and print media operators from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, will discover during their journey the cities of Casablanca, Rabat, Marrakech, Tangier, Chefchaouen, and especially Fez with its medina and its recently-restored monuments.
Representatives from CCTV, China’s first national channel with an audience of more than 700 million viewers and Shanxi Daily and its digital relay baokanhuici.com, which are among the most visited websites in China, have joined along to cover the trip.
The visit, organized by the Moroccan National Tourist Board (ONMT), follows several activities aimed at promoting Morocco on the Chinese market and increasing the attractiveness of the destination and creating a Chinese demand for Morocco. The aim of this strategy is to attract as many as 100,000 Chinese tourists to Moroccan cities in 2017.
Morocco has recorded a sharp increase at 300 percent in Chinese visitors in the space of one year, a performance that is largely due to the removal of entry visas for Chinese nationals.
To accompany this momentum, the ONMT has entered into partnerships with airlines including Air France, Etihad Airways and Turkish Airlines. The aim is to ensure regular flights and increase flows from China, pending the launch of direct flights between Morocco and China.
According to Abderrafie Zouiten, head of the ONMT, “this initiative will also help to better marketize Morocco in the Chinese market.” He stressed the need to deploy more efforts in accommodating this growing clientele.
The president of the China-Morocco Association for Economic Development, He Fang, said his association, which is a platform for cooperation in several economic sectors in Africa, wants to expand its cooperation with Morocco in the tourism sector by investing in particular with Chinese channels for the production of documentary films on Morocco.
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