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Days after British tour operator Thomas Cook announced its collapse, a meeting was held in Agadir, one of the cities impacted by the news, to discuss the situation of the tourism industry, a communiqué sent to Yabiladi by the Moroccan National Office of Tourism (ONMT) reported.
The meeting, held Thursday, was attended by ONMT director general Adel El Fakir, heads of hotels that collaborated with the holiday firm, the president of Agadir’s regional tourism council and the Wali of the Agadir Souss Massa Draa region.
Ensuring that Thomas Cook customers in Morocco enjoy their stay in the country and assisting their repatriation was at the heart of this meeting, the same communiqué revealed, adding that only 268 of the firm’s holidaymakers are currently in Agadir.
Meanwhile in Marrakech, ONMT met with several Thomas Cook clients who are holidaying in Morocco. Speaking to the tourism body, they stressed that their stays were not «affected by the Thomas Cook collapse» and that they were not asked for «extra money» by the hotels they are staying at.
Moment reactions of some Thomas Cook clients now in Morocco after the collapse of #thomascook #visitmorocco #visitmarrakech
— Visit Morocco (@Visit_Morocco_) 26 septembre 2019
Témoignages de touristes clients de Thomas Cook, actuellement en séjour au Maroc pic.twitter.com/9nxmmPGnDJ
«Since the collapse, everything has been straightforward, nothing’s been difficult», one of these British tourists said.
Indeed, ONMT said in its press release that hotel owners in Morocco, most precisely Agadir, have promised to guarantee Thomas Cook client’s stays in the Kingdom. Other hotels in the country have even offered, spontaneously, to host the impacted tourists.
ONMT’s meeting in Agadir was also about trying to find solutions for the hotel industry in the Kingdom which would be impacted by this loss. This impact was highlighted, Wednesday, by the head of Morocco’s tourism federation Abdellatif Kabbaj, who said that Moroccan hotels would be left with 200 million dirhams of unpaid bills after the collapse of British holiday firm.
For the record, in 2017, the British global travel company announced a partnership with the Moroccan National Tourist Office (ONMT) during the World Travel Market, held in London. At the time, Thomas Cook promised to increase its influx of British tourists to Morocco from 70,000 to 400,000 by 2020.
