La naviera GNV amplía las conexiones marítimas de Marruecos con España, Italia y Francia
From 2022, Grandi Navi Veloci (GNV) will add five new lines to its offer that will reinforce the maritime connections between Morocco and Spain, Italy and France. To this end, the Italian shipping company, founded in 1992 and part of the MSC corporation, will expand its fleet with five new ships that will operate these routes on a regular basis, between two and three times a week. The new routes incorporated are: Barcelona (Spain)-Tangier, Barcelona-Nador, Genoa (Italy)-Tangier, Sète (France)-Tangier and Séte-Nador.
GNV is currently one of the leading shipping companies in the Mediterranean and, as reported by the French daily midilibre.fr, this expansion is part of its strategic plan to strengthen its position in the international market. These new maritime routes represent for the company a 'firm commitment' to the reactivation of maritime tourism to and from the ports of northern Morocco, especially those with access to the Mediterranean Sea.
In addition, and with the aim of preparing for the summer season, the company has announced several commercial offers on these routes. All ticket bookings made between 25 October - when tickets were made available on the company's official website - and 8 November will be able to benefit from a 40% discount on journeys made between June and September 2022. Likewise, the 'Pre-sale' option has been created, which allows the reservation of a ticket with a payment of 10% of the total price, having the opportunity to finalise the purchase up to 30 days before the trip with the payment of the remaining amount.
In this way, the Italian company continues to strengthen its network of maritime connections, focusing now on the Moroccan region, but accompanied by other extensions in the territories of Tunisia, Spain and Italy. GNV thus hopes to make profits and revive, with this strategy, the maritime tourism sector after its paralysis due to the coronavirus crisis.
In this sense, the Kingdom of Morocco is seeing how its shipping and maritime sector continues to grow with these new routes and other examples such as the inauguration a few weeks ago of a new maritime freight transport connection between Tangier Med and the city of Poole, in the south of the United Kingdom.
The route came into operation at the end of September and enables Morocco to export its products to British territory in less than three days, compared to the six days it takes by land.
Another example is the maritime route between Tangiers and Portimao (Portugal), which has been in operation since July. As explained by the Moroccan Ministry of Transport, this line makes two trips a day with 4,000 people on board. The journey time is approximately 7 hours, with reasonable prices, according to the Moroccan media Bladi, with a return ticket costing around 4,500 dirhams.