Tangier has always been a "small world city". It has long been inscribed in the global imagination as a city of exchanges and cosmopolitanism.
Gateway to the Mediterranean and Africa, Tangier has a unique and ideally located site.
An international city ahead of its time, it has all the assets to regain, in the era of globalisation, the status it acquired more than a century ago. The great geography of the bay, the topography that showcases the Medina and the bathymetry of the strait, which dictated the location and evolution of the port, have composed over time a unique ensemble.
The first operation to convert a port site on the scale of the Kingdom, this project has as its main objective to allow the city of the strait to position itself as a flagship destination for cruise and pleasure tourism on the Mediterranean scale. This major project will endow the city of Tangier with a tourist and cultural offer with high added value, built around the port concept: the existing infrastructure, onto which new installations dedicated to pleasure boating and cruising, to the passage of fast-ferries and to maritime fishing are grafted. As for the urban dimension, the port will open onto the city and will offer cultural spaces, hotel units, entertainment and commercial zones, as well as residential hubs and a set of offices. A state-owned enterprise, the Tangier-Ville Port Zone Development Company (SAPT) is the structure carrying the project. Its missions are the design and development of the project as well as the management and commercialisation of the newly converted port. Covering a total investment of seven billion dirhams, the work for the implementation of the said project will be completed at the end of 2016, according to the declaration of the Director of Studies of the Tangier-Ville Port Zone Development Company, Hassan Mzerma.
The cruise port project
Tangier's position at the crossroads of Atlantic and Mediterranean routes, its rich history, its openness to other cultures as well as the development of communication infrastructure with the rest of the Kingdom are major elements for the development of cruising. The region also has undeniable tourist assets. Tourists will be able to admire the Medina with its tombs of Phoenicians from antiquity to the medieval Moorish walls and the beautiful beaches, Atlantic or Mediterranean, then they will be able to go to the villages perched on the Rif mountains or visit the vestiges of ancient Phoenician or Roman cities.
The project thus aims to allow the city to welcome approximately 300,000 cruise passengers in 2016 and 750,000 in 2020. The realisation of the infrastructure dedicated to cruising will require an investment of 320 million dirhams.
