Marrakech’s Tourism industry in trouble as COVID-19 surges, again

Morocco’s vibrant Marrakech featured on this year’s Time magazine for the World’s Most Beautiful Places, all the while city locals are lamenting a battered tourism industry and colorless atmosphere driven by curfews and a slow return of tourists.

“Marrakech’s famous (and frenetic) medina is a test of navigational skills, but it’s well worth visiting the winding alleyways and narrow market stalls,” wrote the Magazine, commending the city’s old town, usually wildly popular with curious visitors.

Though the coronavirus outbreak hammered down on many Moroccan cities since tearing across Moroccan soil, Marrakech has had it notably hard.

Marrakech alone receives more than a million tourists annually.

‘Marrakech was dynamic before COVID-19 but now it  has turned from the most beautiful city into a ghost city completely empty of movement ’ said Abdelsadek kadimi, the president of the regional association of tourist guides in Marrakech.

Over the past year the streets of the city were emptier than they’ve been in a very long time, leaving tour guides and tourism workers sitting idle as travel restrictions are driving yet another slow tourism season.

‘All the workers in the tourism sector in Marrakech were affected after this pandemic,” Kadimi told Hespress English  over a phone conversation.

‘We have 1000 guides in Marrakech they are not fully  working, despite the government allowing the arrival of Moroccans residing abroad and foreign tourists but the guides are still suffering.”

Morocco resumed international travel and allowed  travellers from key tourist source markets to access Moroccan territory with vaccination certificate or a negative PCR tests since June 15, yet fluctuating COVID-19 cases worldwide is leaving the rebound of this season looking highly uncertain as the delta variant surges in Europe,

“Marrakech city will return to its lifeblood when the crisis is over,” said Kadimi.