Beni Mellal-Khenifra: Morocco-Swiss Agreement for Development of Sustainable Tourism Conditions

Rabat – Minister of Tourism, Handicraft, Air Transport and Social Economy, Nadia Fettah Alaoui held, on Wednesday in Rabat, an official meeting with the Swiss ambassador, Guillaume Scheurer, in order to exchange the Moroccan-Swiss cooperation agreement aiming notably at developing the conditions of sustainable tourism in the region of Beni Mellal-Khenifra, signed last June 8.

Held in the presence of director general of the Moroccan Society of Tourism Engineering (SMIT), Imad Barrakad, this meeting was an opportunity for Fettah Alaoui to communicate with Scheurer about this agreement which will enable the implementation of the “Switzerland-Morocco sustainable tourism” program aiming at boosting the development of this sector in the region.

“We have an extremely important cooperation project that concerns the region of Beni Mellal-Khenifra, which is par excellence suitable for rural, ecological and sustainable tourism,” stressed the minister in a press statement at the end of the meeting, adding that “this project, which will last five years, is co-financed by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and the SMIT to the tune of 38 million dirhams”.

“Our objective is to accompany and support operators in different ways in order to enhance the natural and cultural resources that will help us to create a real tourist region, especially in a post-Covid context where this desire for nature, health and well-being will enable us to promote ecological and sustainable tourism,” she said.

For his part, Scheurer noted that both sides “decided to focus on the Beni Mellal-Khenifra region in order to have maximum impact in promoting sustainable tourism”, pointing out that this region has “a lot of natural assets and very well trained tourism agents.”