Tourism in Morocco and Egypt hit fresh records in 2025, as new flight links, showpiece museums and Africa’s top sporting event helped reaffirm their spots as the continent’s most-visited destinations.
Year-end data reported by the North African countries saw Morocco record some 19.8 million arrivals, 14% more than the year before. Visitors to Egypt, meanwhile, rocketed an annual 21% to 19 million.
The figures signal boom times for tourism industries that are key employers and foreign-currency sources and have firmly rebounded from the Covid-19 pandemic while shrugging off the knock-on effects of two years of conflict in the broader Arab world.
While no governing body tracks arrivals for every African country, both UN Tourism and the World Travel & Tourism Council show Morocco and Egypt have consistently outpaced sub-Saharan destinations.
For Morocco, the figures reflect a “deep transformation” of its tourism offerings, according to Fatim-Zahra Ammor, the minister in charge of the sector that accounts for about 8% of the US$178bil (RM721.83bil) economy.
The kingdom’s arrival numbers are 50% higher than the pre-pandemic peak, and have shown little effect from the devastating earthquake that hit south of the tourism hotspot of Marrakesh in September 2023. That city’s iconic, oft-chaotic central square is currently being revamped.
A swathe of new flights has helped speed arrivals. Royal Air Maroc added new connections to its main European market last year and received new aircraft as part of a plan to quadruple its fleet to 200 by the 2038. There are new direct routes to the United States and China, while Ryanair provides a brace of low-cost options from Europe.
Already busy trade in December got an extra boost from the visit of tens of thousands of football fans from the rest of the continent and the African diaspora to attend the Africa Cup of Nations. Morocco hosted the flagship event from Dec 21 to Jan 18.
The country is seeking to draw 26 million annual tourists by the time it co-hosts the FIFA World Cup with Spain and Portugal in 2030.
Egyptian tourism, meanwhile, has proved resilient even with the war raging for two years in neighbouring Gaza. Crowds have flocked to the long-awaited US$1bil (RM4.05bil) Grand Egyptian Museum, which sits in the shadow of the Pyramids of Giza, since it formally opened in a glitzy ceremony in November 2025.
Elsewhere, the Red Sea resorts of Sharm El-Sheikh and Hurghada are as buzzing as ever, while new developments on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast are building the area’s profile as an international – not just domestic – destination.
Cairo itself is undergoing a facelift, with flashy new hotels and the restoration of its historic downtown and the area around its 12th-century citadel.
There’s a target of more than 20 million visitors in 2026, Tourism Minister Sherif Fathi told local media recently. Occupancy at hotels has reached 100% in some locations, he said.
The country, also famed for its Nile cruises, is looking to attract 30 million annual arrivals by 2031. – Bloomberg
