How Morocco Is Navigating Its Surf Tourism Boom
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If you visited Imsouane—a small fishing village in Morocco turned surf travel hotspot—early last year, you'd have walked through a lively labyrinth of surf cafes, hostels, and ceramic vendors, perhaps passing a donkey in a makeshift stable or a shop selling live chickens. Down by the shoreline on the western side, you might have stayed in one of the troglodyte cave houses built into the cliffside.
But on January 18, 2024, property owners were given 24 hours to vacate sections of the village before bulldozers razed them to dust—repeating a process that took place in Tifnit, another surf town, the month before, as Moroccan authorities clamped down on illegal coastal settlements in an effort to develop tourism ahead of hosting the FIFA World Cup in 2030.
Surfers from all over the world—some of whom have been riding Imsouane's wonderfully long and mellow right-hand wave since the late 1990s—were up in arms. “Please help stop this tragedy,” posted the Californian longboarder Kassia Meador on Instagram, while sharing a petition that garnered over 30,000 signatures.
Others have decried the destruction and subsequent rebuilding in Tifnit and Imsouane as gentrification, suggesting that the changes were prompted by the recent increase in tourism to Morocco’s coast. But the local response in Imsouane has been more nuanced, as boosting tourism in the region is seen by residents as a route out of poverty for much of the community, who previously relied on fishing as their main source of income.
“Tourism in Morocco is blowing up right now,” says Bilal El-Hammoumy, co-founder of Inclusive Morocco, a company that runs tailor-made itineraries led by locals throughout the country. “It’s the second biggest industry [after agriculture] and a huge moneymaker for local communities.”
Diversifying that offering beyond the souks of Marrakech, and developing niches such as surf tourism, is a key part of the country’s vision for the future, says El-Hammoumy, and something locals are broadly in favor of, though he concedes it can be “a double-edged sword” when the government takes steps to clean up areas, especially when it involves removing existing homes and businesses.
Twenty-seven-year-old Omar Oukhair, who has lived in Imsouane his whole life and now teaches surfing there, witnessed the destruction first-hand. “It was horrible,” he says. “We were shocked and depressed for the people who had lost their hostels, and those magical traditional houses.”
When I visited Imsouane last October on a surf trip, several residents explained that many of the demolished properties, including some of the troglodyte houses which are thought to have dated back to the 1960s (if not before), were built illegally without official government permits. Located in the government’s “maritime zone,” many of the buildings didn’t adhere to building regulations, tax requirements, or plumbing infrastructure, I was told, though there was a widespread sympathy for the property owners. As El-Hammoumy says, “It’s not like these people wanted to build on illegal land, it was their economic circumstances that pushed them to [do so].” What's more, a handful of the demolished businesses did have legal rights to build on the maritime zone, according to Oukhair, who said the government has since compensated those individuals and allowed them to rebuild following certain protocol.
While Oukhair’s surf school and guesthouse survived, he saw many of his friends lose everything, and much of the community initially dispersed. Having read about the destruction online, tourists stayed away at first too; guests texted Oukhair that they were too scared or sad to visit, even though he explained it was just certain parts of the village that had been torn down. “It was very bad for people here,” he says. “If there are no tourists, there is no Imsouane.”
As the weeks went by, tourists began to trickle back, and by October—the start of the prime surf season that runs until May—visitor numbers had really picked up. According to Oukhair, most of the businesses in Imsouane are owned by the local Amazigh people, like himself, who are Indigenous to Morocco. Others are owned by Moroccans based in Casablanca and Rabat. “I’m happy as everyone can come and everyone can work,” says Oukhair.
Imsouane had returned to a new sense of normal by the time I visited in the fall, albeit it was a slightly more muted version of the town (a French tourist I spoke to bemoaned a “lack of vibe” compared to when she’d visited the year prior). The razed parts of the village in front of the bay hadn’t been replaced by a mega resort as some surf travelers had feared. Instead, new, slicker and less ramshackle surf cafes and hire shops had sprung up, built by the few former business owners whom the government had given permission to rebuild. Many other local businesses—like my favorite hotel O Surf House—thankfully remain standing. There are murmurs of plans to build a new hotel complex up the hill on the other side of the village, but as of now there are no global hotel chain developments in the works on Imsouane’s coastline.
Nobody knows if the government plans to repeat the same kind of demolition that was seen in Imsouane, but the village's transformation has left locals and visitors wondering whether authorities will be able to bring growth and order to the Morocco's coast in a way that benefits local people while retaining the unique charm, authenticity, and uncrowded waves that attracted visiting surfers to this stretch of Atlantic Coast in the first place.
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‘We don’t want to have another Bali'
As the popularity of surf spots like Imsouane continues to rise, infrastructure improvements can help mitigate the potential negative impact of increased visitation. Ahead of the 2030 World Cup, which is estimated to boost tourism to Morocco by 80%, more tourism projects along Morocco’s coast are in the works including at Anchor Point, a famous right hand point break that recently hosted a World Surfing League qualifying event.
For local industry leaders, the key to managing Morocco's surf tourism boom is prioritizing cultural authenticity and environmental sustainability. “We don’t want to have another Bali, when it comes to pollution or crowding at surf spots,” says Said Bella, co-founder of Taghazout Surf Expo, an annual surf industry conference and trade show. “We know it’s very important to protect the environment, the water quality, and the local area and we are working closely with the regional government and local surfers to that end.”
Bella, who is also proudly Amazigh, has watched the sleepy fishing village of Taghazout transform into Morocco’s surf capital over the past 20 years. Located just an hour and a half’s drive south from Imsouane, Taghazout Bay is an expansive tourist resort built with over $1 billion investment and part-owned by the Moroccan Fund for Tourism Development. Here, you'll find five-star hotels including a Fairmont, Hyatt, Hilton, and Radisson.
Bella initially launched Taghazout Surf Expo in 2022 to bring together the regional councils, national tourism office, and Royal Moroccan Surfing Federation in an effort to codify surfing’s role in Morocco’s tourism industry. “We wanted to put a spotlight on the surf industry and show that the government should take more care of surf tourism as they do for luxury hotels,” says Bella.
As surf tourism continues to grow on Morocco’s coast, Bella would like the Indigenous Amazigh culture to be showcased more, even if it’s through something as simple as the meals served: “Those surfer breakfasts with avocado toast—you can eat that in Australia, America, and Indonesia—but we should also preserve our culture by serving Amlou [made with argan oil, toasted almonds, and honey] with Moroccan pancakes,” he says.
Bella notes that it’s also vital for the industry to commit to sustainability as it expands, citing France and Portugal as examples of countries who manage the impact of surf tourism well. According to Nour-Eddine Sallouk, president of the environmental NGO Surfrider Foundation Maroc, marine litter is a major problem in southern Morocco, especially on the Atlantic Coast. “It is a magnificent but fragile region,” he says. “With the rise of surf tourism, particularly in Taghazout and Imsouane, the quantity of waste generated locally is increasing." The pollution is made worse by the towns' lack of waste management and infrastructure, he adds.
Sallouk wants the government to do more to tackle the problem of waste and wastewater management and to enforce existing environmental laws, such as the plastic bag ban passed in 2016 that he says is frequently not enforced. But Sallouk also thinks surfers—both residents and visitors—have a role to play. He urges them to leave no trace and pick up their own waste (and even that of others) at the beach, to avoid single-use plastics by bringing a reusable bottle and using ecological packaging, and to favor surf schools and accommodation providers committed to ecotourism. These include Surf Maroc, one of the first surf holiday companies to set up in Taghazout in 2003, which is now entirely plastic-free. Guests are given reusable steel water bottles and packed lunch boxes for the duration of their stay, and are encouraged to use the beach clean up kits stored in all their surf vans.
During my visits to Imsouane and Taghazout, I didn’t see plastic pollution in the ocean, but it was noticeable at some of the beach parking lots. What was more apparent were the crowds in the water, particularly at Imsouane in October, where riding the bay’s magical wave became a risky—albeit thrilling—game of dodge-the-surf-school-participants.
Crowded surf breaks are a problem all over the world as surfing’s popularity rises among finite waves—but locals are already brainstorming potential fixes. Bella wonders whether some beaches may limit the number of surf schools who operate at each spot in the future, whereas Oukhair from Imsouane thinks a good solution would be to allocate two-hour time slots for surf schools to operate, with the rest of the day reserved for residents and visitors who want to surf on their own.
Crowd management comes up at town meetings, Oukhair says, but notes you won’t find any locals with a bad word to say about visiting surfers thanks to their positive impact on the economy. “Before surfing, it was just a village for fishermen,” he says. “My father and brother are fishers and if there was no surf tourism, that is what most of us would be doing.” Morocco’s surf tourism boom has the power to shape the country for the better—now, it’s up to visitors to get on board with what locals want that to look like.
Originally Appeared on Condé Nast Traveler
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