Morocco celebrated the World Day of Tourism on September 27 with the worldwide theme "travel and transport". Albayene reports that the World Day of Tourism provided the Ministry of Tourism with the opportunity to stress the importance of the tourism sector, which was described by the Ministry as "one of the driving forces of the Moroccan economy".
According to the figures published by the Ministry of Tourism, some 3, 5 million tourists visited Morocco from January to July 2005 indicating a rise of 6 % compared to the figures of 2004. In this figure, France occupied the first place with a total of 802,870 tourists followed by Spain with 189,565 tourists.
