Three and half years after being launched, the meetings and event industry portal Event Planner Spain has recently widened its scope of action to include Morocco. Since the launching of this initiative at the beginning of June, 35 Moroccan venues and service providers have become members.
Created in 2006 to showcase Spanish MICE resources, Event Planner Spain has recently expanded to Morocco.
"Portugal was the most obvious choice," says Sandra Berbee, CEO of Event Planner Spain, "although we finally decided on Morocco because of the fact that it’s an emerging MICE market with enormous potential."
Over the last few years, Morocco has indeed taken an enormous leap forward, with the building of a large number of top meeting and convention hotels and resorts all over the country. Nowhere can this be better seen than in Marrakech, where the number of hotels has nearly tripled from 58 in 2002 to 140 in 2009 (9,483 and 22,150 hotel rooms, respectively), with plans to open 13 new hotels in 2010, bringing the total number of rooms available to 32,000. This is excellent news for international planners looking for novel, exotic and competitive destinations.
"Over half of our traffic comes from abroad (140 countries in total), above all from Europe, Russia and USA," explains Berbee. "Despite the fact that the Euro Zone is now marginally cheaper than it was last year – due to excess supply and lower exchange rates – the truth of the matter is that emerging short-haul destinations like Turkey, Croatia and Morocco, are offering meeting and event planners new alternatives."
As a sweetener, Event Planner Spain is currently offering new Moroccan members a free one-year trial period, with no obligations, while maintaining its offer of a free six-month trial period for new Spanish members.
"There are some French portals similar to ours promoting Moroccan event venues and services, since for historical reasons the country has always been popular with the French," explains Berbee. "Our aim, though, is to promote this destination among English-speaking countries, Europe, Russia, China and South America."
Recent figures show that business tourism represents between 10-13% of the total number of arrivals in Morocco (and 30% in the case of Marrakech). Within the framework of its Tourism Plan 2010-2020, Morocco has established a new objective: to become the leading country in leisure and business tourism in Africa. The recently created Morocco Convention Bureau, a joint venture between the country’s public and private sectors and the institution responsible for promoting the Moroccan MICE industry, has already launched its first campaigns in priority marketing, such as France, of course, but also in Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Belgium and Spain.
Event Planner Spain’s strategy also lies in tapping new markets for the Spanish and Moroccan MICE industries. The portal’s general content is currently available in Spanish, English, French, Russian and, recently, German as well. "By the end of the summer, we also plan to have general content in Portuguese, Chinese and Dutch," explains Berbee. "National demand isn’t as it was before the crisis and will probably take quite a few years to recover, so we are keen to open up new markets both for Spain and Morocco."
Launched in 2006, Event Planner Spain is now one of the country’s leading meetings and event industry portals, with 200,000+ visitors per month and over 650 members from Spain and Morocco. The portal offers its members a direct online channel (without commissions) for showcasing their services and the opportunity to position their companies in five languages (soon de be eight). With a full range of event venues, agencies and service providers, Event Planner Spain also includes news and events and interesting reading sections, exclusive promotions, a free RFP and information service in five languages, and a monthly newsletter distributed to 13,000+ MICE professionals in Spain and abroad.
