Marruecos abre sus fronteras al turismo internacional

The Alawi country has decided to open its borders after announcing the resumption of international flights as of 15 June. Tourists will have access to Moroccan territory provided they present a vaccination certificate and a negative PCR that has been carried out 48 hours before entry.

The countries that will be affected by these measures are all EU countries with the exception of Lithuania, as well as the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, China, Russia and any UN member country that is not on the Moroccan Ministry of Health's B-list. This list refers to those countries experiencing "a dispersion of variants or the absence of accurate statistics" for COVID-19, according to the authorities.

In addition to presenting a negative PCR, tourists will have to be quarantined for 10 days. These measures are in response to Morocco's tough decisions to control the pandemic. In this regard, Morocco has planned to achieve collective immunity for 80% of the population after launching a massive vaccination campaign last January that has already affected almost 6 million Moroccans. Morocco has opted to use Astrazeneca vaccines alongside the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine.

Last January, Rabat decided to close its airspace to try to control the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and its new variants. For this reason, the Moroccan airline Royal Air Moroc (RAM) only operated to specific destinations, including Tunisia, Mauritania, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, the United States and Canada. 

This reopening to international tourism coincides with the current diplomatic crisis between Morocco and Spain over Spain's stance on the Western Sahara issue. The arrival of Polisario Front leader Brahim Ghali in Spain triggered a bilateral crisis between the two countries that still has no tangible solution on the table.