Wednesday, January 19, 2022
The tourism ministry on Tuesday said that Morocco will provide 2 billion dirhams ($220 million) to help tourism businesses as well as workers to manage the damage caused by COVID-19 restrictions. Since last November, Morocco has kept its borders closed and reinforced its vaccine pass requirements to combat omicron coronavirus variant.
This help package includes 1 billion dirhams and would help hotels to revamp and stay afloat after encountering 22-month-long crisis, and a 2,000-dirham monthly payment in the first quarter of 2022 to affected workers, the ministry said in a statement. Other steps comprise loan payment deferrals and a local tax waiver for 2020 and 2021.
In 2019, tourism generated $8 billion or 7 percent of Morocco’s economy when it received 13 million tourists. However, the central bank expects it to have made only $3.6 billion last year.
