RABAT, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- Tourist arrivals to Morocco increased 9 percent in the first half of 2017 compared to a year earlier, financial daily L'Economiste reported on Wednesday.
This strong performance results from a significant increase in the traditional European market, L'Economiste said, citing statistics from the Moroccan Ministry of Tourism.
Tourists from the United States grew 27 percent, followed by Germany (12 percent), the Netherlands (8 percent), Spain (7 percent) and France (5 percent), it reported.
The increase was also driven by the surge in the emerging tourist markets, especially China and Japan. Chinese arrivals jumped 565 percent, while Japanese visitors rose 46 percent.
A total of 10.3 million tourists visited Morocco in 2016, up 1.5 percent from 2015.
Morocco expects tourist arrivals to grow 6 percent in 2017.
Tourism is one of the main economic drivers in Morocco as it employs more than 500,000 people, nearly five percent of the country's total jobs, and represents 6.7 percent of Morocco's national economy.
