Within this total, the French were the highest with 180,000 tourists (+10 pc), followed by Spanish (115,000 tourists. +, 23 pc), Belgians (27,000 tourists+ 24 pc), Dutch (27,000 tourists+ 28 pc), British (26,000 tourists + 18 pc), Germans (23,000 tourists + 4 pc) and Italians (21,000 tourists+ 20 pc).

The increase of tourist arrivals has been accompanied by an increase of 2 pc of nights reported by the tourist accommodation establishments classified in the Kingdom to about 1.08 million nights in January 2010.

Marrakech has recorded an increase of 13 pc. Casablanca, Tangier and Rabat have also experienced the same trend of growth (14 pc 6 pc 7 pc respectively).

Following this development, travel receipts totalled some 3.56 billion dirham, thus registering an increase of 6 pc over the same period last year.

The Tourism Department also reported an increase of 14 pc the number of international passengers transiting through international airports in the Kingdom, who reached last January some 905,000 passengers against 793,000 a year earlier. Half of these passengers have passed through Mohammed V airport in Casablanca.