Rural Tourism

 Introduction

  Morocco is well-known as a tourism destination, especially in Europe, which is a an important source market for this country. However, when discussing Morocco's role as a tourism destination, people do probably not think about rural tourism but rather about beach or circular tourism (cf. Andreas Kagermeier 1990 S. 92). Nevertheless, as offers from tour operators as a well as the Moroccan national strategy for tourism development show, rural tourism might become quite an important element in Mo-rocco, especially in the southern regions. This type of tourism will be the main inter-est of the paper on hand. The focus is put on the south Moroccan village Timidarte, where inhabitants started to develop rural tourism that follows the idea of community-based, village-based and cultural tourism. As far as information is available, there was no detailed professional planning before-hand. Therefore, from a professional point of view it is interesting to do this work now; for Timidarte the findings of such an analysis will be important for its future strategies. However, due to limited access of information, the analysis of the tourism situation in the village cannot be completed here. But the paper will 1) show the framework of the tourism in Timidarte and 2) set up the ground for further research on the spot, that is, for the final thesis mentioned before. In this context it is necessary to investigate the chances of rural tourism re-garding the Moroccan tourism market in general and the offers of the southern re-gions in particular in order to get an overview of possible positive or negative devel-opments of Timidarte.
The paper is structured the following way: Chapter one provides the necessary basic information on rural tourism in general and specifically on the tourism situation in Mo-rocco thus giving an overview on its tourism market. Chapter two illustrates the role of rural tourism in the regions Ouarzazate and Zagora and in the valley Drâa. Chap-ter three takes a closer look at the situation of Timidarte and the role of tourism for the village development. Chapter four connects the findings of the previous chapters with scientific papers on community-based tourism in order to highlight strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats1 of the tourism development in Timidarte. The last part combines all the results into recommendations for following investigations and studies on the spot.

Rural Tourism

With respect to the variety of definitions that are used in order to characterise rural tourism it is necessary to explain the understanding of the term in this paper. Rural tourism here is simply seen as tourism activities in rural areas. In nearly all parts of the world those areas are confronted with a major challenge: Agriculture does not generate the necessary income for life any more. Thus, rural areas have to look elsewhere for their economic regeneration and employment (cf. Nicole Häusler/Wolfgang Strasdas 2002, p. 11).
In rural areas different types of tourism can take place. Cultural and village-based tourism are the prevailing types in southern Morocco. Cultural tourism is typical for the so-called study tours. It focuses on culture as daily local life, traditional celebra-tions, history and archaeology of a community. By this form of tourism local culture is often being preserved or even revitalised (ibid. p. 10f). Village-based tourism on the other hand puts the emphasis on experiencing the daily life of a community: Tourists share the villagers’ activities, and homestays are a typical form of accommodation (ibid. p. 12). Although in practice it is sometimes different to tell these two types of tourism apart, cultural tourists rather look at the culture whereas visitors in village-based tourism projects participate in the daily activities of a community.
Rural tourism in all its different shapes can be conducted in distinct ways, as for ex-ample by a central figure or institution or by the villagers' community itself. The latter is often termed 'community-based tourism' (or shorter: CBT). CBT is characterised by the participation of a significant number of local people (not necessarily all inhabi-tants) who have ”substantial conrol over, and involvement in (the) development and management (of tourism). The major proportion of the benefits remains within the lo-cal economy” (Häusler/Strasdas 2002, p. 3). Generally speaking, CBT aims at in-creasing local and visitor awareness of conservation, at hosting just small groups of tourists, at minimising the negative impacts on the natural and socio-cultural envi-ronment and, above all, at enabling the community to manage their project (including the financial aspects) on their own (cf. Häusler/Strasdas 2002, p. 3f). There are sev-eral potential benefits related to CBT. With respect to Timidarte it is important to know that the community has decided to conduct tourism in order to:
• generate additional or supplementary income,
• use tourism as an incentive for the rehabilitation of historic buildings and for the improvement of the visual appearance of villages (which are an important re-source for tourism), and
• rehabilitate traditional arts and crafts (cf. Strasdas 2004).
There are also potential risks of CBT. These will be integrated in the discussion in chapter IV.

In breif

According to the Secretary General of the Moroccan Ministry of Tourism Hassan Kacimi, Morocco is "a land of contrasts combining two sea fronts, snowy Atlas moun-tains, (and) desert", and it is placed ”at the crossroads of three worlds”: Africa, Europe and the Arab World (Kacimi 2004). A closer look at Morocco’s geography gives detailed information on the above statements: The country is located in North-west Africa, and borders to the east with Algeria, to the south with Western Sahara (occupied by Morocco), to the west with the Atlantic Ocean, and to the north with the Mediterranean Sea facing Spain. It has 3500 km of coastline (Mediterranean and At-lantic), mountains (Atlas, Anti-Atlas and the Rif mountains), forests, wild flowered mountain valleys as well as oases and sandy deserts (cf. The Washington Times 2000). These elements are usually of high attraction to beach tourists (coastlines) and to trekking or desert tourists or generally for tourists who value spectacular natural sceneries.
In addition to these geographical facts, there are cultural and historical elements that should also be mentioned in connection with tourism in Morocco: The country is rich in historic cities, mosques, medreses, kasbahs (castles), qsour (fortified villages) and artefacts of the Berber culture (cf. Klaus Müller-Hohenstein/Herbert Popp 1990, p. 185). These cultural aspects are attractive for tourists of circular or city tours, for tourists who are interested in history or in the cultural background of Morocco.
In fact, tourism in Morocco is mainly taking place as beach tourism and to a smaller but significant share as circular tourism. Circular tourism initially targeted exclusively the major traditional cities such as Meknes, Rabat or Marrakech. This tourism was performed as cultural tourism. Later, the Moroccan state also began emphasising the development of circular tourism as natural tourism. As a result, the southern Moroccan regions Ouarzazate, Zagora and Er-Rachidia with their great nature potential were indicated as regions of tourism interest (cf. Kagermeier 2004, p. 394).
Tourism in Morocco builds on more than one segment which gives the country ad-vantage to one of its major competitors, Tunisia, which only emphasises beach tour-ism (cf. Kagermeier 2004, p. 394).
In his analysis of the tourism situation in Morocco, Kagermeier (2004, p. 390) refers to the life cycle concept for tourism destinations (adapted from Butler)2 and states that Morocco, after years of rapid tourism growth, has been in a phase of stagnation for several years; international arrivals decreased since 2001, so did tourism reve-nues since 2002. Consequently, if tourism in Morocco shall recuperate, Morocco has to put efforts in it.
Concerning the tourism market, the Secretary General of the Moroccan Ministry of Tourism states that even though there is a great potential for tourism in Morocco (cf. chapter I.2.1) the country still only holds a small share of the market (cf. Kacimi 2004). Therefore, the National Ministry of Tourism developed a national strategy for tourism in order to realise its vision of receiving 10 million tourists by 2010 (cf. ibid). Within this strategy, ”rural tourism development has become an important goal to achieve" (ibid).
The following paragraphs take a closer look on the facts on which the statements of Kagermeier and Kacimi base: the tourism development in Africa and North Africa in general and in Morocco in particular.