RABAT, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Morocco registered 6.5 million tourist arrivals in the first six months of 2023, surpassing the pre-pandemic level in 2019 by 21 percent, the Ministry of Tourism said Monday.
In June, the volume of arrivals reached almost 1.4 million, a 25 percent increase compared to the same period in 2019, it said.
Among the tourists, those from Spain were up by 79 percent, followed by Britain, 23 percent, and Portugal, 16 percent.
The sector's revenue soared to 4.1 billion U.S. dollars in the first five months this year, up by 42 percent year-on-year from 2019, the ministry added.
Tourism is a key sector in the Moroccan economy, directly contributing 7.1 percent of the total GDP in 2019 and providing an estimated 565,000 jobs, equivalent to 5 percent of total employment. ■