Taza 2030: The bet for a tourist Morocco with no forgotten territories

During the second edition of the "Memory and Living Arts" Festival, held under the theme "Taza 2030: Taza reinvents itself," the SMIT unveiled its ambitions for the enhancement of local heritage while highlighting the growing potential of the territories. The second edition of the "Memory and Living Arts" Festival opened on Friday under the theme "Taza 2030: Taza reinvents itself," with the ambition to enhance local heritage and promote a development dynamic based on culture, arts, and innovation. As Morocco prepares for the 2030 milestone and aims to consolidate its positioning among major international tourist destinations, a strategic question arises: how can we ensure that this dynamic benefits the entire Kingdom, including territories whose tourist potential remains insufficiently valued? In Taza, this question takes on a particular dimension. Between natural heritage, mountain landscapes, forests, caves, local traditions, and the richness of the terroir, the territory brings together the ingredients of a unique destination. However, like many emerging territories, its challenge does not lie solely in the existence of remarkable resources. It consists of transforming these resources into economic projects, productive investments, and sustainable jobs. It is precisely on this articulation between territorial potential and value creation that the intervention of the Moroccan Society of Tourism Engineering (SMIT) focused during the festival on memory and living art, for a cultural renaissance this Saturday, October 17, 2026. A tourist Morocco that leaves no territory behind. The SMIT explained that the tourism development of the Kingdom cannot be measured solely by the performance of its most established destinations. Its success must also be assessed by its ability to reveal new territories, diversify the national offer, and broaden the geography of investments. The ambition is to build a tourist Morocco with multiple destinations, but never a two-speed Morocco. For the SMIT, Taza should not be considered a peripheral destination in relation to the Kingdom's major tourist hubs. It must be understood as a territory with its own competitive advantages, potential markets, and its own development trajectory. The challenge is not to replicate the models of Marrakech, Agadir, or Tangier in Taza. It is to build a tourist proposal consistent with the identity of the territory, its reception capacity, its natural resources, and the aspirations of its population. This orientation is part of a development vision based on reducing territorial disparities, creating jobs, and better distributing economic opportunities. It aligns with the objectives of the Investment Charter, which provides for incentives intended to strengthen the attractiveness of territories and support job-creating investments. Taza, a destination to be revealed. The Friouato cave, forest and mountain landscapes, as well as cultural and gastronomic resources, constitute as many support points for imagining a differentiating tourist offer. Ecotourism, hiking, discovery tourism, nature accommodation, rural experiences, handicrafts, and the promotion of local products: these activities can contribute to enriching the national offer while opening new economic perspectives for local communities. But the transition from potential to destination requires real tourism engineering. A natural site does not automatically become a tourist product. It is necessary to organise access, structure services, create accommodation possibilities, and design experiences capable of retaining visitors. For the SMIT, it is also necessary to link the sites together, build coherent circuits, and integrate Taza into regional and national tourist flows. The SMIT insisted, during its intervention, on the fact that the tourist value of a territory does not depend only on the beauty of its landscapes, but on its capacity to be able to organise a complete, accessible, sustainable, and economically viable experience. Transforming potential into investment. Tourism development must rely on a concrete capacity to bring projects to light, improve their maturity, and create the conditions for their realisation. In Taza, this approach involves working on the constitution of a portfolio of opportunities adapted to the territory, from human-scale accommodation projects to leisure activities, nature experiences, and heritage enhancement initiatives. For the SMIT, the digitalisation of investment also constitutes an important lever. Thanks to its digital tools, notably its tourism investment platform, the SMIT has made opportunities at the territorial level more visible, which helps to facilitate their geolocation and improve the connection between project leaders and investors. The objective is to reduce the gap between a territory that possesses resources and a territory capable of presenting readable, structured, and attractive opportunities to the market. This approach does not consist of substituting public intervention for private investment. On the contrary, it aims to create the conditions allowing the latter to deploy in territories where engineering, information, and support can make the difference. Territorial equity begins with access to investment. The issue of sustainable development is not limited to the preservation of the environment. It also concerns the capacity of territories to access funding, skills, economic networks, and entrepreneurial opportunities. For Taza, this implies fostering the emergence of small and medium-sized tourism enterprises, supporting young project leaders, backing female entrepreneurship, and facilitating the integration of cooperatives and local producers into the tourism value chain. The benefits must go beyond just accommodation establishments. They must benefit guides, restaurateurs, artisans, transporters, farmers, and all the services that contribute to the visitor's experience. The SMIT explained that in this perspective, several support mechanisms for tourism entrepreneurship, including Moukawala Siyahia, have been put in place as a lever to facilitate the maturation of projects and encourage the creation of activities. The real challenge consists of bringing about an ecosystem in which tourism investment generates local income, sustainable jobs, and new perspectives for the populations. Territorial equity does not mean that each region can receive the same projects. It means that each territory must be able to access the means necessary to enhance its own assets. 2030: a deadline, but above all a method. The prospect of 2030 offers Morocco a major opportunity to accelerate the modernisation of its tourist offer, strengthen its competitiveness, and broaden investment opportunities. For Taza, the challenge is to seize this dynamic without making events the end goal of development. The destination must be able to attract visitors before, during, and after 2030, thanks to a sustainable offer, the quality of its services, and the uniqueness of its experiences. This assumes, according to the SMIT, an integrated approach associating territorial authorities, local communities, economic actors, investors, and national institutions. The SMIT can contribute to this dynamic by mobilising its expertise to identify priority projects, structure opportunities, and bring project leaders closer to financial and technical partners. Success will have to be assessed based on concrete indicators: investments actually made, companies created, sustainable jobs, length of stays, local tourist spending, and preservation of natural resources. It is therefore not just about preparing for an international deadline. It is about building the foundations of a territorial tourism economy capable of developing over the long term. Investing in Taza is investing in a more balanced Morocco. The case of Taza finally refers to a question that goes beyond the borders of the province: that of the tourism development model that Morocco wishes to consolidate for the coming decades. A model in which international competitiveness does not oppose territorial cohesion. A model in which the protection of natural heritage constitutes an economic advantage. A model in which investment contributes to broadening the perspectives of populations rather than concentrating opportunities in the only already attractive hubs. It is in this articulation between attractiveness, investment, and inclusion that the SMIT intends to register its action. The success of Taza 2030 will therefore not be measured only, according to the SMIT, by the number of visitors welcomed or the accommodation capacities created. It will be measured by the territory's ability to sustainably transform its resources into wealth, its projects into companies, and its ambitions into jobs. Because a truly competitive tourist Morocco is also a Morocco that knows how to bring out its destinations of tomorrow, and in which no territory is condemned to remain on the margins of value creation. In Taza, sustainable tourism development can thus become much more than a sectoral strategy: an instrument of territorial transformation and a concrete expression of the ambition for a more balanced, more inclusive, and more resilient Morocco.