Third International Conference on Tourism & Leisure Studies

Abstract

Developing economies usually have unstable and weak institutions (Choi et al., 2010). Therefore, internationalization to these countries involves several risks (Phillips et al., 2009) that may be stronger in cases of institutional differences between the investors’ home country and the host country (Cavusgil et al., 2014; Johanson and Vahlne, 1977). However, developing economies offer strong business opportunities to foreign firms, with tourism emerging as a key sector. Morocco, the main tourism destination of North Africa (OMT, 2016), can be considered a good example of it. Our work identifies institutional challenges encountered by small lodgings that operate in Morocco, and whether those challenges are faced by local and foreign entrepreneurs in the same way. For the exploratory study, we surveyed hotels, riads, and hostels on Booking.com in 2017. Out of 847 establishments with an email address or phone number, we got 50 valid replies. Sample lodgings are owned by 19 Moroccans, and 31 foreigners, mainly French (12) and Spanish (5). The main challenges encountered are: lack of expertise in tourism planning at the national level, inefficient public administration, lack of tourism promotion, corruption and unfair competition, especially by some riads and illegal guest houses. Foreigners clearly perceive more challenges than Moroccans in relation with educational system, lack of suppliers, unqualified suppliers, discriminatory taxes, unofficial dealings and cultural challenges due to religious issues. Finally, we found that the greater the institutional and cultural distances between the respondent’s home country and Morocco, the greater the level of institutional challenges perceived.