On the other hand, there is a tremendous opportunity because all of these tourists who went to Egypt and Tunisia can come to Morocco, the only stable country in the region. How will you capitalize on this opportunity?

You are right. You are on the field and you see that this is a stable country. We had some
protests, but they were peaceful. We are used to having them every day. Protesting in Morocco is allowed and we have in average aroun
d 20 protests every day. This is something we have been dealing with for years and democracy has been progressing for many years in the country. Now, how are we going to benefit? This is a tricky situation. Since the events started in some neighbouring countries, we decided not to have an opportunistic approach and take advantage of what is happening there in terms of communication.

We have not been going out in the media saying that we are better off or that we are more stable just for the sake of respecting our neighbours and their situation. We preferred to keep working as we have being doing for many years now, being serious in building our tourism strategy. The future will show that there is a dynamic happening here that can be seen today as well.

Are we going to catch the tourists? I do not believe so because we have completely different products. 70% of tourism in Morocco is spontaneous – people booking directly via websites or directly with hotel operators. We also have what we call in the industry last minute booking. 30% of the 70% is last minute booking, meaning the last week; the second 30% is the last month.

This is a completely different model than the neighbouring countries' where they mainly have tour operating tourism and low cost mass tourism. Therefore, today we are not in the position to catch all the flows leaving Tunisia and Egypt. We see them leaving to other destinations like the Canary Islands.