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After the earthquake in which more than 2,900 people died in Morocco, many there who rely on tourism fear for their existence.
The Sept. 8 quake damaged historic sites in Marrakech, the country’s fourth-largest city, but the impact was greatest in the High Atlas Mountains, in destroyed villages closer to the epicenter.
Before the coronavirus outbreak, tourism accounted for more than 7 percent of Morocco’s gross domestic product. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, nearly 13 million tourists visited Morocco in 2019.
Those numbers fell sharply as the pandemic crippled global travel, but Morocco had forecast a full recovery in 2023. The earthquake could ruin these plans.
Turkey’s tourism sector has been slow to recover following the two earthquakes in February that killed nearly 60,000 people in Turkey and Syria.
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Marrakesh, the largest city affected by Morocco’s earthquake, has been a hub for travelers in the region for nearly 1,000 years. The labyrinthine medina – the market streets that make up a large part of the walled old town – has been declared a world heritage site by UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural organization.
The main meeting point, Jemaa el-Fnaa, reputedly the busiest square in Africa, is full of visitors all year round, fruit sellers, grilled meat vendors and street musicians, creating a lively, carnival-like atmosphere late into the night.
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While the modern parts of the city survived the quake relatively well, some structures in the old town were severely damaged.
The Kharbouch Mosque near the center of the Medina is crumbling.
“I was able to visit the Medina of Marrakesh to see the damage to this UNESCO World Heritage Site,” Éric Falt, the director of UNESCO’s North Africa Office based in Rabat, Morocco, wrote on Instagram. “They are much more significant than expected.”
“First, there are large cracks in the minaret of Koutoubia, the most emblematic structure, but we can also see the almost complete destruction of the minaret of the Kharbouch Mosque in Jama El Fna Square,” he wrote. “The city walls are also damaged in many places. However, the most clearly affected district is the Mellah (former Jewish district), where the destruction of old houses is most spectacular.”
But fears about the impact on tourism are not limited to the city, where life largely continues as usual after the quake. The hardest-hit communities – small villages in the High Atlas south of Marrakesh, where most houses are still built in the traditional Berber style of mud brick – also rely on income from hikers and other visitors drawn by their picturesque, rugged landscapes .
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“While most tourists know about famous monuments in big cities, smaller villages have their own monuments that have suffered from marginalization for decades,” Brahim El Guabli, an associate professor of Arabic studies at Williams College, told the Associated Press. “The entire Moroccan High Atlas is dotted with important historical monuments.”
Although the mountain towns receive only a fraction of the tourist traffic that flows through Morocco’s major cities, the region is dotted with ancient mosques and ruins, hiking trails and national parks. People who lost their homes and loved ones in the earthquake now have to think about how they can earn a living.
“The tourism sector in Marrakech will suffer for months, while surrounding areas will need years of rehabilitation,” said Rachid Aourraz, a Morocco-based non-resident senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, a Washington think tank.
“I think the development model followed in the region needs to be reconsidered,” he said. “It is illogical to rely solely on tourism. Economic activity must be diversified to avoid stagnation caused by the collapse of the tourism sector in times of crisis.”
The Moroccan government announced on Thursday a plan to provide reconstruction funds to people whose homes were destroyed. Intissar Fakir, director of the North Africa and Sahel program at the Middle East Institute, said she hoped these “sensible promises” would introduce “some level of control” over construction standards.
In a region where impoverished villages – accessible only by unpaved, winding roads – receive limited government services and rely on small-scale agriculture, even a small influx of visitors can be an important source of income.
“Some of these villages exist almost entirely because of tourism,” said Graham H. Cornwell, a historian of the Middle East and North Africa at George Washington University. “Much of the economic impact will be invisible in places that double as homes and businesses – perhaps a small cafe on a front patio where everything is paid for in cash. “It’s impossible to quantify.”
Many villagers – mostly men, Cornwell said – travel to Marrakech to work in the tourism industry, some in the informal economy.
“Next year will be very difficult,” said Mostafa Ait Salah from the village of Oued Azadene, who works as a manager at Chez Momo II, a small hotel in the town of Ouirgane. “I don’t know if we’ll still have our jobs or not.” The hotel was damaged by the quake.
“We are still alive. We are not leaving our city,” he said. “We are serious about taking care of our people, but we need help from people around the world.”
In the coming weeks, the unemployed in tourism would try to rebuild houses, he said.
Authorities are advising against traveling to places still recovering from an earthquake, and experts have warned travelers against increasing the strain on the country. Many areas are closed to tourists. The U.S. Embassy in Morocco advises visitors to avoid affected locations and to be aware that “hospitals and resources in the most affected areas may be overwhelmed.”
Akim Elanbassi, the owner of the Morocco Travel Agency, who told the Washington Post he felt the quake shake the walls of his hotel room in Morocco’s Ourika Valley before fleeing to Marrakech, said many villages in the High Atlas are far from the Epicenter remained away and would continue to welcome visitors.
Cornwell suggested that tourists should look to local businesses in hard-hit cities that may remain closed for some time.
The country’s tourism office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the recovery plan or how visitors should adjust their travel plans.
“After a disaster like this, the most important thing is to save lives,” Falt wrote. “But we must also immediately plan the second phase, which includes the reconstruction of the schools and cultural assets affected by the earthquake.”