In Marrakech, one must be vigilant when wandering through the alleys and thoroughfares of the city. A septuagenarian British tourist, on holiday in the Ochre City, learned this a few days ago at her own expense by falling into an… unprotected manhole. Transported in an emergency to a local clinic, the victim escaped with a few injuries, although the accident could have been fatal. This incident, detrimental to the image of the city and Morocco, highlights a certain laxity from which Marrakech has suffered for some years due to the negligence of elected officials. Starting with the PAM mayor Fatima-Zahra Mansouri who, visibly too absorbed by her ministerial function and internal squabbles, does not give the impression of taking care of the affairs of the Kingdom's premier tourist destination. Local professionals are numerous in deploring this manifest slackness which they deem unworthy of the reputation of Marrakech and its international influence. A hotelier cites as an example the unglamorous state of the Guéliz district, left to hordes of beggars and where cleanliness leaves much to be desired. "There must be a real recovery of Marrakech at the municipal level," adds a Riad owner. Passers-by, whether tourists or not, falling into unsecured manholes is not how elected officials worthy of the name contribute to promoting tourism in their city. But the big black spot that crystallises the growing dissatisfaction of tourists upon their arrival at Menara airport is the excessively long time taken to complete formalities at the border police counters. "It is not normal, for example, that a Spanish tourist arriving in Morocco after a flight of an hour and a half takes more than two hours to leave the airport," scoffs a Marrakchi travel agent who blames the slowness of the passport control procedure. Another finds that these delays annihilate the otherwise commendable efforts of the ONDA to streamline the tourist journey both on arrival and on return.
