Youth’s Perceptions of Tourism’s Social Impacts in Casablanca, Morocco

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2016 in the subject Tourism - Miscellaneous, grade: 80.00, International Hotel Management Institute Switzerland (IMI University Centre), course: International Tourism and Events Management, language: English, abstract: This dissertation aims to investigate the perceptions and attitude of young citizens towards the social impacts of tourism in Casablanca, Morocco. Tourism is known to have both positive and negative social impacts on any community and significant research has been done on how host communities perceive it. However, little research has been implemented on the perceptions of young people particularly. The first objective was to review secondary data regarding the topic. The reviewed literature presents different models and theories such as Doxey's Irritation Index, Butler's Cycle and the Social Exchange Theory. A primary fieldwork research was designed to meet the second objective of investigating the perceptions of the youth. The research was carried out through an e-survey and a total sample of 301 people in Morocco. The collected data were analyzed and the results were compared with the findings from the literature review. Some of the findings were indeed surprising. Although most of the respondents think that tourism has a good impact on their city, opinions vary according to age, gender, income and ethnic background. Casablanca is yet to become a mature destination and measures need to be taken to avoid future irritation among locals. Most notably, hospitality managers should provide women with adequate working conditions and the Moroccan government should prioritise tourism as an economic activity but also as means for social cohesion and social sustainability.