Almost nine years later, I’m back at the keyboard with an almost identical headline: should you cancel your holiday in Morocco after the earthquake in Marrakech?
At the time, the threat was remote, since it concerned the kidnapping of a Frenchman in Kabylia. And yet, as after every terrorist attack, bookings fell off sharply, between the people who believed that Fès was in the ‘daeschist’ desert and the others.
Back in 2011, I asked the same question after the attack on the Café Argana in Marrakesh.
So as I watched the urgent pleas from Moroccans begging tourists not to cancel their holidays, everything’s fine in Marrakesh, what you see doesn’t show the reality of the city, the destruction and deaths are elsewhere, and while I understood those tourism professionals who were finally able to get back to work after the coronavirus years, I wondered what my old self, the one who used to work, would say today?
And my answer would be, a little more than during these two events, “it depends”.
This “it depends” is based on several factors.
Zero risk does not exist and never has
I’ve ‘known’ (experienced or seen) six or seven earthquakes in Morocco. Morocco is subject to an ‘average’ seismic risk, but as in all situations where a probability is evaluated statistically, the dice are rolled again each time.
In other words, unlike a terrorist attack, the fact that there has been an earthquake does not mean that lightning will strike elsewhere in the coming months, or that there won’t be another one the following week.
On the contrary, as all the specialists repeat, there is a strong likelihood that in the coming weeks Morocco will experience other tremors linked to readjustments. And there is a strong likelihood that these tremors will be much weaker (like the second earthquake, which took place half an hour after the one in Marrakesh, and which was, compared to it, a gentle spring breeze).
So there’s a high probability of weak tremors.
So exactly the same risk you were taking ‘before’ when you went on holiday to Morocco (or Turkey, or Naples, where Vesuvius and the phlegrean fields are of some concern to specialists).
In terms of risk, the only difference with last week is that you’re aware of it.
It depends on when your holiday is planned
Cancelling bookings for Christmas or spring makes no sense whatsoever. By then, the consequences of Friday’s earthquake will have been absorbed, in every sense of the word.
For next week, things are a little different.
And (see next paragraph) in the big cities or the big tourist resorts, you’re more or less safe: since the Agadir earthquake, Morocco has gradually introduced anti-seismic building standards, which have been in general use since the 2000s. The poor, ‘little people’ don’t apply them, for lack of money and knowledge, but believe me, a big hotel does.
But if you were planning to go to this mountainous south that I loved so much, let’s be very honest, it can still shake.
It depends on what you were planning to do
So what were you planning to do? Bask in the sun on a beach in Agadir, surf in Essaouira, visit Rabat… go for it.
Spend a week touring Morocco, crossing passes, for example on the classic route from Marrakesh to Merzouga and back? Or go to Fez and then back down to Tafilalt?
In this case, there are two things to bear in mind:
- the risk, which is real and statistically higher than normal. Personally, I have a rather fatalistic “Tonight in Samarkand” attitude, but you should also avoid going just where it’s riskiest.
- Do you really want to cross devastated landscapes, meet people in mourning and, for your own pleasure, clog up roads that should be dedicated to emergency services, at least in the very short term?
Ask the professionals you had booked with what the situation really is. Consider postponing or rerouting your trip, without cancelling. I hope they will all be honest enough to give you the right advice.
It depends on you
In the end, it all depends on you.
In the case of the attacks, I said that even if there was no risk, there was no point in ruining your holidays by forcing yourself to come to a place where you’re stressed by fear.
Nor is there any point in forcing yourself to come ‘out of solidarity’ in an atmosphere that is heavy – and that’s normal.
No, life hasn’t gone back to the way it was in Marrakesh.
Materially, yes, but the people who work in tourism, the cleaners, cooks, caretakers and guides, who often have family members who have been badly affected, still sometimes don’t know what has happened to their loved ones.
One much-publicised riad owner suggested that all tourists should become volunteers.
Let’s send untrained, inexperienced people who don’t speak Arabic to remote villages.
You have the right to be affected by this event and you have the right not to want to celebrate or simply take it easy in the midst of such a sadly affected population.
In conclusion
Should you cancel your holiday because of the earthquake in Morocco?
In the affected region, in the very short term, if your programme involved visiting the region, yes.
In three or four weeks’ time, no, but you may have to rearrange them.
And in the meantime, there are other ways to help.
(All the photos in this post illustrate areas that have been destroyed).
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