The tourism sector is Morocco's main foreign currency earner.

RABAT, June 21, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – Seeking to give a momentum to its strategic tourism industry, Morocco has been according major attention to luring regional and international conferences as well as cultural events and festivals.

Contributing to that drive, hotels mushrooming across the North African country are keen to provide locations equipped with state-of-the-art facilities to host such events.

This is no longer the privilege of luxurious hotels after even three-star hotels developed the same business mentality with special offers to lure conference organizers.

They even contract translation centers across the kingdom to provide simultaneous interpreters for the conferees.

Conference tourism, which is growing strongly worldwide, is one of Morocco's most dynamic sectors.

It is particularly important for the high per capita expenditure of participants, considerably higher than that in the hotel industry overall.

According to estimates of the Tourism Ministry, some five million tourists visited Morocco in 2004, 18% higher than in 2003 which witnessed a tourism recession after least 39 people were killed in bomb attacks that rocked Casablanca.

The Moroccan government hopes to attract as many as 10 million tourists a year by 2010.

Moroccan cities have also played host to a plethora of artistic and cultural galas, some controversial, to lure more foreign tourists.

In 2004 the northern city of Fez hosted a musical festival in an earnest effort to enhance the tourist flow in the city, particularly from neighboring Spain.

"The Fez festival saw a strong showing by Spanish bands," Mohamed Al-Qabaj, advisor to King Muhammad VI and the festival chairman, told IslamOnline.net.

"It mainly aimed at attracting more Spanish tourists as Spain ranks third after France and Germany in terms of incoming tourists."

Some festivals, however, triggered heated controversy in the North African Arab country.

The northern city of Marrakech, the kingdom's cultural capital, hosted in May a music festival on Christian rock music organized in tandem with the American NGO Friendship Caravan.

The gala drew protests from Islamic and church circles in the country, charging that it was a ruse by the American Evangelical Church, which has strong ties with the Friendship Caravan, to get a foothold in Morocco.

In another related development, the Moroccan government is seeking funding to a 14km-long undersea tunnel between the country and Europe via Gibraltar.

The idea was tabled 20 years ago by late King Al-Hasan II during a visit to Spain for talks with King Juan Carlos.

According to Spanish media, the tunnel would help bring in millions of tourists from across Europe to the country.

The tourism sector is Morocco's main foreign currency earner, with revenues totaling around six billion US dollars in 2004.