Negotiations are underway for the launch of a direct air route between Morocco and China by the end of 2019, head of Morocco’s tourism promotion office ONMT said. The new link will depart either from Morocco’s economic hub Casablanca or from Marrakech, the Kingdom’s tourism hub towards either Beijing or Shanghai, the ONMT chief said. Morocco sees enormous opportunities in the Chinese market, which has 130 million tourists traveling abroad annually and spending generously. The country’s tourism ministry said it targets attracting 500,000 Chinese tourists every year by 2020 as it seeks to diversify tourism emitting markets. Morocco’s tourism promotion office has also signed an agreement with the Confucius Center to train tourist guides to speak mandarin, a language that is also taught at some top Moroccan universities.

Source: The North Africa Journal January 22, 2019 16:07 UTC