Morocco is ranked 65th in the world by the 2017 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness report released on the 5th of April. Published by the World Economic Forum, the index investigates the economic growth and competitiveness of tourism in 136 countries. Morocco tops the North African region's ranking despite the drop that the recent report sheds light on. The Kingdom's tourism competitiveness is still struggling with significant shortage in the exploitation of cultural and natural resources. With more than 10 million international tourist arrivals and 73,000 tourism workers, Morocco is ranked 65th in the world by the 2017 report of Travel and Tourism Competitiveness published by the World Economic Forum. The TTC 7th edition, with the help of several regional institutions, shows the Kingdom's tourism sector's position alongside 136 economies in the world. The North African country is leading the region followed by Egypt and Tunisia, while it is listed as the 6th Arab country in the list. However, compared to 2015, Morocco has dropped in the scale moving from 62nd to 65th with a score of 3.81. The TTC report relies on 4 sub indexes and 14 pillars which aim to measure the environment, condition, infrastructure, and the natural and cultural recourses in the field of tourism of every country. To develop tourism and ensure a sustainable system that preserves the local culture and the environment, the TTC gives a range of data to help countries track their economies and have an idea about their competitiveness when it comes to tourism. Morocco for example has good to average results in several aspects such as the Business Environment factor (49th). It is considered a safe and secure country (21st) followed by the Netherlands while scoring positive numbers in the Price competitiveness (47th) and the prioritization of travel and tourism (35th) indexes. Morocco's natural and cultural recources are underexploited Next to the positive results, Morocco's economy is still struggling with a few factors. The country is at the bottom of the list with the inability of making use of natural and cultural resources and travel business. As a destination, the multicultural land is incapable to ensure a good exploitation of its cultural diversity, scoring only 2.5 in that particular index. For other countries, Spain tops the report for the second time followed by France as second and Germany in the third place while the United Arab Emirates (29th) leads the Africa and Middle East territory. Titled «Paving the way for a more sustainable and inclusive future», this study aims to provide a reliable platform with strong and sustainable data in tourism.
