{"id":4431,"date":"2021-01-06T18:49:15","date_gmt":"2021-01-06T18:49:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/?p=4431"},"modified":"2021-01-06T18:49:15","modified_gmt":"2021-01-06T18:49:15","slug":"covid-empties-moroccos-blue-pearl-tourist-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/2021\/01\/06\/covid-empties-moroccos-blue-pearl-tourist-town\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID empties Morocco’s ‘blue pearl’ tourist town"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Link to article- https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/gallery\/2021\/1\/6\/covid-empties-moroccos-blue-pearl-tourist-town<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When COVID-19 originally came to Morocco, a small tourist town called Chefchaouen had zero documented cases for the first few months. The small population in the Morocco town closed themselves off from the world to prevent the disease from invading its borders. Now the country is trying to reopen its borders and rebuild its economy, but Chefchaouen continues to get no tourists to the beautiful, blue painted town. During the holidays this year, the only visitors they got were local tourists rather than their usual foreign tourists. This lack of tourism for the holidays brought a lot of struggle for the local businesses in the town who usually make the most sales during this time of year. The lack of tourism along with an earlier curfew is making it very hard for this town to rebuild along with the rest of the country as they continue to reopen their borders. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chefchaouen is going to have to find a different way to support local businesses and rebuild their economy until it is safer for people to travel. It is very unfortunate that they have had to face these circumstances and it must be very different to live in a town that is so reliant upon tourism at a time like this. I believe that Morocco’s government needs to give some more recognition to places like this in their country and come up with a plan to help them rebuild along with the rest of the country. Obviously this struggle won’t end until the pandemic is over, but it is their responsibility to combat it for the time being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To connect this to class, Chefchaouen is of geopolitical interest to Morocco because of its unique features that attract tourists and help build Morocco’s economy as a whole. Therefore, it is in their interest to help support this town’s community and businesses in order for it to remain as a tourist attraction in the region. This support will have to come from something other than tourism though until COVID-19 settles down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Link to article- https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/gallery\/2021\/1\/6\/covid-empties-moroccos-blue-pearl-tourist-town When COVID-19 originally came to Morocco, a small tourist town called Chefchaouen had zero documented cases for the first few months. The small population in the Morocco town closed themselves off from the world to prevent the disease from invading its borders. Now the country is trying to reopen its borders and rebuild its economy, but… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":179,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/179"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4431"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4440,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4431\/revisions\/4440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}