El grupo hostelero Barceló acuerda con Marruecos una inversión de 47 millones

The Ministry of Tourism, headed by Fatima Zahra Ammor, has set a target of 17,600 hotel beds for the Tangier-Arcila area. To this end, they will count on the cooperation of the Spanish hotel chain Barceló, which on Thursday signed a memorandum of understanding with the Moroccan authorities to establish this public-private partnership programme. 

The president of the Barceló group, Simón Pedro Barceló Vadell, provided his signature during the ceremony, which was also attended by the Moroccan Secretary of State for Investment, Mohcine Jazouli. The agreement reached by the parties consists of the acquisition and renovation of several hotels in Morocco by the Barceló group. The mission entrusted to the Spanish entity is to give them a new impulse and improvement in order to improve the quality of the hotel offer in the coastal city. According to statements made to the local press, the Mallorcan group is committed to investing around 500 million dirhams.

The three parties also celebrated the reopening of the Barceló Tangier hotel, which reopened at the end of July after a period of restoration. It is a 1970's building located opposite the city's seafront with more than 200 rooms. The event, held in the hotel itself, was attended by the head of the Spanish diplomatic mission in Rabat, Ricardo Díez-Hochleitner. 

In statements reported by the MAP agency, Minister Ammor welcomed the signing of this agreement, which aims to boost tourism in the country. The Barceló group is the Spanish hotel chain with the largest presence in Morocco. It was in 2006 when the chain opened its first establishment in the city of Casablanca. Today it has six large hotels in the cities of Casablanca, Fez, Marrakech, Agadir and Tangier. 

According to Secretary of State Jazouli, the Barceló group joins a large portfolio of investors that the Moroccan government already has. One of the main items on the agenda of the Akhannouch government, in power since October 2021, is the attraction of private foreign investment. Among these investments, tourism is one of the focal sectors that the Moroccan government emphasises in its campaign, along with renewable energies and the automobile sector. The Spanish ambassador, Díez-Hochleitner, assured the media present at the inauguration that "the presence of a Spanish hotel chain in Tangiers shows that we are countries that have a lot to do together". 

The Ministry of Tourism announced that the Spanish investment is part of the government's plan for the city of Tangier, which envisages rehabilitating the city's medina. The Moroccan medinas are one of the major tourist attractions in the historic centres of North African cities. 

The city of Tangier and its metropolitan area are the subject of a tourism plan by the Moroccan government, which also aims to improve capacities for MICE tourism for the business world. Tangier is the main city in the north of the country, which, thanks to its ports, enjoys a high traffic of travellers. According to official figures, more than 97,000 international travellers stayed in Tangier hotels during the summer of 2022. This is 12% more than in the same period in 2019, before the pandemic.
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