Emergence of New Tourist Destinations in the Mediterranean Hinterlands – The Case of the Chefchaouen Region (Morocco)

Abstract In Morocco, public policies continue to favor the seaside model, while the reality of both demand and offer shows that tourist destinations in the hinterlands are increasingly emerging. The purpose of this article is to focus on the process of emergence of new tourist destinations in rural Morocco. It tries to analyze the quite particular conditions of the triggering of a demand and an offer in rural tourism, by assuming that whatever the potential, the emergence or otherwise of a destination depends mainly on the convergence of three actors. It is the tourist who invents the destination through his expectations and his Vision, local actors who many accept or reject this request and public policies that may or may not accompany local initiatives that seek to meet this demand. Thus, after having recalled the conditions for the development of rural tourism in Morocco, the article focuses on the process of emergence of a destination of rural tourism through the case of the region of Chefchaouen, small town in the Western Rif, by analyzing the arrival of demand, the mobilization of international cooperation, the initiatives of the local associative movement and the hesitations of public policies.