2015

Design of a strategy of sustainable tourism and revitalizing of the figuig economy as an strategy of local development

The program to be evaluated

Figuig is an oasis that has the agriculture as basic economic resources, being the date palm tree palm the most typical element; as well as some fruit bowls and products of the orchards. In the 70s’ there begins a drastic decrease of the cultivable areas that together with the strong natural growth of the population provokes that the resources of the oasis are not anymore sufficient to maintain to the totality of its population. That caused a serious and marked rural exodus in a national and international scale and a change in the population composition of the city: the men in labour age emigrate and remain mainly women, elders and children. Nowadays, personal consumption agriculture keeps on developing but the currencies of the emigrants are the main source of income.

With this situation, the local development agents put forward the need to analyse new revitalizing possibilities of the this economy that are capable of relieving the deficits of quality life of the inhabitants and that they help to balance and stabilize the population.

On the other hand, in the last years an important tourist sector has been developing in the Moroccan oriental Mediterranean coast (area of Saidia) that makes the Figuig oasis a potential tourist resource (given its landscape, environmental, architectural and cultural value) for the companies of this sector.

As there is the need to preserve the oasis, which suffers from the advance of the desert and of decrease of the water resources, the Town hall of Figuig proposed to do an exhaustive analysis of the potentialities and impacts of the tourism in the oasis

A seminar was done with all the entities involved in the improvement of the living conditions of the population, among them the Town hall and other social organizations of the city, to design a sustainable Tourism Plan for the municipality. It was promoted a local development led and controlled by the proper inhabitants of the oasis that gives priority to the local sectors that have less resources, and among these especially the woman (60 % of the population) in order to improve the well-being and the quality of life of this population.

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