The city of Ouarzazate is winning the day over other Moroccan destinations. Statistics on the variations in tourists who stayed in this city from January to the end of September show an increase of 18%. This constitutes the first performance recorded at the national level.

Indeed, tourists staying in Ouarzazate went from 181,575 during the same period of 2013 to 214,562 for the year 2014. Furthermore, a second national performance was achieved in terms of total overnight stays recorded in classified hotel establishments. During the first 9 months of this year, classified tourist overnight stays went from 252,239 to 319,690, an increase of 27%.

French tourists are at the top of the ranking with 51,044 arrivals (23.79%), followed by the national market with 16.74%. The German market occupies, for its part, the third rank with 12.019%, followed by the Spanish market with 8.67%. The Japanese and British markets constitute 6.75 and 5.28% of this destination's market respectively.

That said, tourist arrivals from Poland, Spain, Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany have progressed very strongly (+78, +60, +41, +38, +30 and +29%). Resident tourists and Italians showed increases of +13%, while the French progressed by +3%

Thus, the occupancy rate until the end of September 2014 saw an improvement of eight points compared to 2013, as it went from 19 to 27%. The current performances are largely due to cinematographic activity. Furthermore, a promotion plan at the international level has been launched and is bearing fruit. The strengthening of air links has also played a very large role in the promotion of this destination.

Note that the city of Ouarzazate has a flight linking it to Casablanca since June 2014. A flight linking Madrid to Ouarzazate was launched in November 2014 while the creation of a third air line connecting the city to Marrakech, for the year 2014, is under negotiation.

"This performance has benefited the vast majority of accommodation establishments, since record increases in terms of overnight stays were recorded at the 5* category level (+84%), Hotel-Clubs (+46%), and guest houses (+25%). 3* and 4* hotels recorded increases of 20 and 21% respectively", announce the professionals of the Ouarzazate provincial council.