Tourism receipts appreciated by 223.3% for the first two months of the third quarter of the year (Q3-2021), according to the Department of Studies and Financial Forecasts (DEPF). Consolidated at an increase of 15.2% in June 2021, these revenues reached 12.9 billion dirhams (billion dirhams) during the period from June to August 2021, after 4.8 billion dirhams a year earlier and 24.1 billion dirhams. MMDH at the same period of 2019, indicates the DEPF in its economic report of October 2021.
The same source specifies that at the end of the first eight months of 2021, these revenues fell by 17.6% in one year to 20.3 billion dirhams and by 61.5% compared to the end of August 2019 after -74.1 % at the end of May 2021.
This performance is explained, according to the DEPF, by the reopening of national borders in mid-June 2021, combined with the exceptional measures of Operation Marhaba 2021 which generated a double-digit increase in the number of tourist arrivals at the end of August 2021, after more than a year of negative development under the impact of the Covid-19 crisis.
Regarding the flow of arrivals to Morocco, the report notes an increase of 16.2%, to reach nearly 2.5 million arrivals, after 2.1 million at the end of August 2020 and 9 , 3 million at the end of August 2019, reducing the drop in these arrivals compared to their pre-crisis level from -77% at the end of August 2020 to -73.3% at the end of August 2021. For the period from June in August, the number of arrivals rose to nearly 2 million against 165,000 a year earlier, for a share of foreign tourists of 28%, instead of 10.8% a year earlier, specifies the DEPF.
Regarding overnight stays, the report mentions a volume of around 5.6 million overnight stays at the end of the first eight months of 2021, down slightly by 0.5% compared to the end of August 2020 and by 67.2% compared to end of August 2019. For the period from June to August 2021, their number increased by 218.6% compared to the same period of 2020 and fell by 52.3% compared to that of 2019.
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