São Paulo – Royal Air Maroc wants to expand its presence in Brazil with an increase in the number of flights and is discussing a partnership with the Brazilian Tourism Institute (Embratur) to increase the number of Brazilian tourists that travel to Africa and, especially, of Africans that come to Brazil. Last Thursday (3rd), the director-general of the Moroccan airline, Mehdi El Yaalaoui, met with Embratur’s president, Vinícius Lummertz, in Brasília.
Royal Air Maroc had a flight between Casablanca and Rio de Janeiro until 1991, but then remained 21 years without flying to the country. In December 2013, it resumed operations in Brazil with three-times-per-week flights between Casablanca and São Paulo. From Casablanca, the company flies to Europe, Africa and the Middle East. According to information released by Embratur, the company plans to increase the frequency to five times a week until the end of the year and to daily flights in 2016.
Yaalaoui said that the African market has 500 million consumers and is able to send more passengers to Brazil. “I believe that [airline] Maroc and Embratur can do a good promotion job in Brazil and Africa”, he said.
One of the goals is to attract tourists from that continent to the Summer Olympic Games to be held in Rio de Janeiro in August 2016. For this to happen, Embratur and the Moroccan airline are developing a joint action proposal to set up trips with journalists and tourism agents. Besides, tourism operators could receive training to welcome the Africans.
“The Olympic Games are one of the world’s most important events and Africa is very involved with it. Our athletes are famous worldwide and have fans that want to come, visit Rio and watch the games. This is an excellent opportunity to start promoting Brazil. People would be really receptive. Indeed, we already have people asking to travel to Brazil at the time period of the Olympics”, said Yaalaoui.
Lummertz said that there’s a need to present Brazil as a touristic destination to more countries. “Today, the integration with Africa goes through Air Maroc. Besides, we have the opportunity to show that not only the flow of people take advantage, but also trade relations”, he said. According to date from Embratur, in 2014, the year in which the country hosted the World Cup, Brazil received 124,252 African tourists. In 2013, 94,832 citizens of African countries visited Brazil.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
