Some 120,396 cruise passengers have visited the city of Tangier since the beginning of the year until 21 December, against 104,000 at the end of 2014, affirmed, on Tuesday, the tourism delegate in Tangier, Saïd Abbassi.
In a statement to MAP, Saïd Abassi specified that the Tangier city port recorded during this period the docking of 85 cruise ships, noting that the port has succeeded in welcoming large cruise liners of more than 3,000 passengers.
The official thus underlined that the 3rd largest cruise liner in the world "Norwegian Cruise Line" made a stopover, on Monday at the Tangier city port, with 5,800 people on board, including 4,100 cruise passengers of different nationalities, notably Americans, Germans, Spaniards, Chinese, Italians and Japanese, and 1,700 crew members, who carried out guided tours in the cities of Chefchaouen, Tetouan, Asilah and Tangier.
They were also invited to make visits to the main historical heritage sites of the city of Tangier, including the mythical place of the Caves of Hercules, Cape Spartel, the Perdicaris Park and the old Medina.
The "Norwegian Cruise Line" had made a stopover, on 1 December in Tangier, with 5,675 people on board, he recalled, attributing this performance to the conversion project of the Tangier city port, which has reinforced the attractiveness of this important destination of Tangier, and to the improvement of the welcome reserved for cruise passengers, thanks to the setting up of a commission in charge of the operation, which is composed of agents from the tourism delegation, port authorities, the tourism brigade and the Wilaya of Tangier-Asilah.
The conversion project of the Tangier city port area offers important infrastructures dedicated to welcoming the largest cruise liners in the world. Thus, 3 quay berths will be dedicated to this activity, the largest of which will be 360 m long, indicated a document from the Tangier City Port Development Company (SAPT), noting that the targeted traffic is 300,000 cruise passengers in 2016 and 750,000 in 2020.
The conversion project of Tangier city aims to allow the city of Tangier to position itself as a flagship destination for cruise and yachting tourism on a Mediterranean scale, and to introduce new wealth and job-creating activities, to ensure good integration of the port into the city and to guarantee environmentally friendly development.
The port dimension of this project, having required an investment of 2.18 billion dirhams (MMDH), focuses on the cruise and yachting port, which aims to provide the city of the Strait with the largest marina in the region with 1,300 rings, through the conversion of the current fishing port and the development of a new marina to the East of the current port.
