Morocco is one of the TOP5 golf countries in Africa with 40 golf courses. South Africa is the biggest with 484 golf courses. Currently, there are 8 golf projects in development in Morocco (=20% growth) one of them is the Atalayoun Golf Resort in Nador.
The Atalayoun Golf Resort is built on the Mediterranean coast and destined to become Morocco’s ultimate golf performance and learning center. Atalayoun Golf Resort is a residential and touristic development located only 15 min drive from the historic city of Nador, and 25 min from the Spanish enclave of Melilla.
The new resort will offer:
- Collection of luxurious golf apartments,
- A 5-star Hotel (120 rooms; with thalassotherapy center and convention center) and 2 world class Marinas + yacht club designed by JLA Studio,
- The Atalayoun Golf Academy: including a state-of-the-art Performance Centre, full-scale driving range with realistic target green complexes, short game center and a challenging and a 9-hole, par 3 course which runs alongside the lagoon. They will focus on integrating and developing golf within the community and finding and nurturing Morocco’s golfing talent.
- The resort will also offer a premium selection of residences offering panoramic views over the Marchica lagoon.
The second phase of development involves the creation of a City of Riads with collective residences, Riads, shops and entertainment, and a villa zone to the west of the site.
The Atalayoun Golf Resort & Moroccan golf tourism
In 2017, 11.35 million overseas visitors came to Morocco. This is a 10 percent increase from 2016. Most of the foreign tourists came from Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, France, Spain, and the United States. The visitors from China, Japan, and Brasil grew more than 38%.
The strongest growth was recorded in the cities of Fez (+ 39%), Ouarzazate (+ 37%), Tangier (+ 25%), Marrakech (+ 17%), Agadir and Casablanca (+ 11%) according to the Moroccan Ministry of Tourism.
The tourism growth of Tangier is a good news for the developers of Atalayoun Golf Resort even though Nador and Tangier are not so close to each other, but they are on the same coast.
Health and wellness represent an enormous opportunity for golf resorts and golf clubs. Swimming pool and spa will not be enough in 2018 to impress and convince health-conscious golf tourists to visit.
People are looking for ways to integrate productivity and self-improvement. Fitness-focused retreats can be an ideal solution. For many of us, health & wellness are increasingly being seen as status symbol. Just think of The Body Camp in Ibiza or the group fitness tours.
The Atalayoun Golf Resort should be able to deliver personalized customer experience for their future guests. Today’s customers are expecting and demanding choice over every aspect of their hotel/resort stay. Therefore the importance of micro-segmentation is gaining momentum. This will require sophisticated data mining techniques to use.
We should not neglect the finding of the World Bank study. It says that by 2020, more than 50% of the world’s middle class will be from Asia and Asian consumers could account for over 40% of the world’s middle-class consumption.
Another interesting trend is the aging society. Hotels and resorts will have come up with offers and services that are relevant to this segment of the modern society. Allianz predicts that the global retirement market can grow to $46 trillion by 2020.