Undoubtedly, the public who came in large numbers to follow the New Year's Eve party at the Agadir Marina will not have been disappointed. The city's sky was set, for 15 minutes—a first in Agadir—with a myriad of stars, sounds, and colours, to the great pleasure of the spectators.

At 11:45 PM, the French host, Sébastian Cauet, converted for the occasion into a DJ, announced the start of the show. We first scanned the surroundings, not knowing exactly where everything was going to start from, before remaining with our eyes fixed on the sky, as if hypnotised by the magic of the shapes and lights.

To the sounds of skilfully distilled musical scores, a constellation of stars, trees, and other floral motifs seemed to have plunged the audience into a magical atmosphere where silver and gold bubbles passed, with disconcerting ease, from yellow to blue, from white to pink, from blue to purple, or even and especially from green to red: two colours commensurate with the greatness of a Homeland.

Rings of fire followed one another, intertwined or entangled, before detaching themselves without harm, sometimes in the form of spirals, sometimes in cascades or garlands, streaking the sky with a rich palette of happy and cheerful colours, which gave the full measure of quite elaborate pyrotechnic work.

At the whim of this torrent of stars and colours that set the sky ablaze, eyes lit up, tongues loosened, and exclamations erupted from everywhere, as if punctuated by the crackling and detonations of the firecrackers.

"Wow!!! I have the impression that this show is addressed, individually, to each of us. How beautiful it is," enthused a woman in her forties, who had come to follow the unfolding of this colourful fresco on the beach with her husband and children.

Not far away, a child clinging to his father's neck enthused: "I'm sure I'll dream about it tonight! I'm not scared, Dad, I assure you. It's so beautiful. It looks like it's popping like popcorn. Anyway, I'm hungry!!".

Visibly exasperated by tunes too "in the air" for his taste, a man in his fifties, dragging a bunch of teenagers and children, seemed to have enjoyed this final rain of lights: "Bravo! Allah Yâatihoum Assahha. In the end at least, I got an eyeful!".

And who knows? Perhaps the Kasbah of Agadir (Agadir Oufella), as an impregnable citadel that has dominated the city and the Ocean from the height of its 236 metres for ages, might have conferred on the magic of the show an oneiric aspect amplified, moreover, by an almost full moon and a climate that only the city knows how to offer at this time of the year.

It is certainly not Cauet who would say the opposite, he who, before going on stage, had expressed his "frustration at having to leave a city whose charms and beauty everyone sings to me, without having discovered even a little bit of its secrets and mysteries".

During a press briefing on Wednesday evening, the French host, known for his mixing prowess, expressed his willingness to perform in Agadir as part of a one-man show or to accompany young people who share with him "the same values and the same desire to tease," while at the same time assuring that he would perform in Casablanca in two weeks.

Be that as it may, but for the president of the Regional Tourism Council (CRT) Souss-Massa-Drâa, Cauet's presence in Agadir reflects the concern of sector professionals to contribute to the city's animation, the Achilles' heel of this destination which, despite a mixed situation in December, managed to end the year in the green with increases of 3.73% in arrivals and 2.71% in overnight stays.

In a statement to the MAP, he maintained that welcoming a new year with fireworks and a musical evening hosted by a star on Agadir beach announces "a tenacious desire to redouble efforts so that next year will be better," especially thanks to a three-year plan (2015/2017) involving the ONMT, the CRT, the Regional Council, and the urban commune of Agadir to take the destination ever higher, ever further.

According to data provided on 26 December at the headquarters of the Agadir wilaya, during the work of the last meeting of the Board of Directors and the General Assembly of the CRT, the number of arrivals reached, at the end of November 2014, some 851,039, against 820,473 during the same period of the previous year, while that of overnight stays amounted to 4,310,332 against 4,196,788 in 2013.

In terms of arrivals, the national market comes first with 30.69%, followed by the French market (19.88%), Germany (8.92%), England (8.77%), Poland (6.12%), and Belgium (4.20%), the rest being distributed among several destinations, notably Eastern Europe, the Nordic countries, and the Arab world.

The distribution of overnight stays by nationality shows a predominance of the French market with a share of 24.68%, followed by the national market (17.46%), Germany (11.44%), England (12.24%), Belgium (6.60%), Poland (5.96%), Russia (2.87%), and Saudi Arabia (2.75%).

Speaking at the opening of the work of this meeting, Mr Benhammane welcomed the performance of the destination, which managed to end the year 2014, despite a difficult situation, with honourable growth, maintaining that the year 2015 will be that of rebuilding Agadir's image and repositioning it for a better occupancy rate throughout the year.

To do this, the destination must multiply animation offers, reopen closed hotels, and help establishments in difficulty to get back on their feet, he said, calling at the same time on all segments of the value chain for constant self-questioning to contribute together to the development of the sector (hoteliers, professional associations, artisans, restaurateurs, travel agencies, etc.).

He also called on elected officials, deputies, and those in charge to adhere to "positive lobbying" to provide the city with a Congress Palace worthy of its stature, noting that next year will also be that of the launch of the 2015/2017 three-year plan within the framework of a promotion campaign and all-out marketing operation.

For his part, the wali of the Souss-Massa-Drâa region, governor of the Agadir Ida Outanane prefecture, emphasised the importance of opening the destination to the hinterland and taking advantage of the riches and curiosities that the region holds in terms of culture, heritage, local products, and circuits, and taking into account the parameters of sustainability and durability of the tourism sector by linking it to its immediate environment, instead of giving in to the easy temptation of all-inclusive which, often, ends up stifling the profession, due to its confinement.

He estimated that the destination, already lacking bed capacity commensurate with its renown, cannot afford to let hotel units perish in carelessness, and even less so a notable resurgence during the last three months of social conflicts in many of them, calling in this sense on the professionals of the sector to show tact and skill, notably by equipping themselves with skills in charge of human resources management.

The Souss-Massa-Drâa region had concretised its roadmap for tourism development with the signing, on 17 May 2013 in Agadir, of a programme contract including 56 projects, including 12 structuring projects, with an investment of 27.4 billion DH.

Under the terms of this programme contract, the region should put 30,000 additional beds on the market in order to attract nearly 2.2 million tourists by 2020 and thus triple its annual tourism revenues, by leveraging its multiple assets and potential and its dual positioning in the Atlas and Valleys territory, which includes the provinces of Tinghir, Ouarzazate, and Zagora, and the Souss-Atlantic Sahara territory which, for its part, includes the provinces of Chtouka Aït Baha, Sidi Ifni, Taroudant, and Tiznit and the prefectures of Agadir Ida Outanane and Inezgane Aït Melloul.