Introducing Destination Image

“This is it!” Fatiha (our guide to Morocco for the last couple days) said cheerfully as we rounded a curve on the narrow desert road. I looked out the window, awaiting the view of the little mountain city that we would be living in for the next eight weeks. As Ifrane came into view and immediately wondered if we were really in the Middle Atlas mountains, or if we had somehow ended up in the Alps. The town was full of sloped, red-roofed buildings. The only thing that indicated our still being in North Africa was the minarets from several mosques rising above the other buildings. I had been told several times that Ifrane was the “Little Switzerland of Morocco,” but even still I wondered to myself as we continued our drive into the city, “Am I really getting an authentic Moroccan experience here?”

We had arrived in Morocco just a day before. As I followed our group through the old medina, it was hard to keep my jaw from dropping. The sights, the sounds, the smells… everything was novel and seemed so much different from home; a lot of it seemed like it should be from a movie set.. Picturesque keyhole doorways were wedged in between the small shops and carts selling all sorts of “exotic” merchandise. The sound of people speaking Arabic was still foreign to my ears, and I paid close attention hoping to catch some words that I knew with my rudimentary knowledge. My hands were slightly itchy from the henna design drying on my left hand, which had been given to me just minutes before from a talented artist on the side of the road. I still had the aftertaste of mint tea in my mouth from the cups that had been offered us by the owner of the store where we bought our cell phones. I have been preparing for this trip for several months, and I couldn’t believe that I was actually here! All I had experienced of Morocco before was through media or tourist marketing, and there was so much here to take in. However, a question that I didn’t consider at the time has since come into my mind: in this fairly tourist-friendly part of Rabat, how many of the things that I saw—the markets, the henna artists, the teashops—were there for the satisfaction of tourists like myself? Between my experience in Rabat and Ifrane, which one was the real Morocco?

The romanticized images of an exotic land that many people have when it comes to Morocco are not uncommon. Trip Advisor, a widely used online travel resource, gave this description: “the fragrant air of Morocco seems spiked with local spices. Cradled in the dunes of the Sahara…from the bustling Medina of Marrakech to the mosaic of leather tanning vessels in Fes, Moroccan culture is still steeped in rich tradition.” Any traveler to Morocco who uses this website to learn about the country will begin to put together a picture in their minds comprised of deserts, spice markets, and tanneries. Mental images such as these formulate a preconceived idea of Morocco for travelers, called the destination image. I learned about the concept of destination image while doing research on the cultural stereotypes of Morocco. One of the articles that introduced this idea was by Echtner and Ritchie, who explain that; “Destination image is defined as not only the perceptions of individual destination attributes but also the holistic impression made by the destination. Destination image consists of functional characteristics, concerning the more tangible aspects of the destination, and psychological characteristics concerning the more intangible aspects.” Destination images can be accurate in some regards, as they are based on observations and depictions of a culture. However, oftentimes they are exaggerated in some way or they do not give a complete picture, creating unrealistic expectations.

My first encounter with destination image was when I was in middle school traveling in the United Kingdom. I had the amazing opportunity to stay in the home of an English family for a weekend while I was there. During that time, as I was talking to one of the daughters in the family, I realized that all she thought of America was McDonalds and Disneyworld. Obviously I knew that America cannot be so oversimplified, and tried to explain to her that it has more complexities and depth, and in a lot of ways isn’t so different than living in her native England. This made me think, too, about how a country can really be identified by just a few elements, which may or may not even be accurate. I have several friends who haven’t even been to Disney. How could that be the essence of America?

When I began to think about it, however, I realized that every country has something that is used as its identity to the rest of the world—all of France is Paris, all of Kenya is a safari, and all of Peru is Machu Picchu. The destination image of every country is marketed to the rest of the world. This gives travelers expectations of what they want to see and experience while at the destination, and they can move on with the “must-see’s” checked off of their to do list… But how much of the country did they experience?

The misconceptions within destination image, however, are not only one-sided. Morocco depends on its destination image in order to be marketable for tourists. Tourism is one of Morocco’s top industries, and the country provides tourists with a wide range of tourist opportunities, “from beach holidays to cultural tourism opportunities such as Marrakech.” (Morocco Tourism Report 2013) Oftentimes traditions and customs, especially those contributing to the destination image, are staged by the local culture as an appeasement of sorts, leaving the tourists satisfied and the locals left alone to go about the other aspects of their lives beyond the clicking cameras of tourists. This is not to say that interaction with tourists is not a part of the “real life” of a Moroccan, especially those that work in the tourist industry. However, there is a separation between what is open for tourist observation and what is kept among locals.

(Another thing to clarify is that not all tourists are from foreign countries. There is a lot of internal tourism that happens in Morocco as well—Ifrane is one of the most popular destinations for Moroccans, especially during the winter. However, this blog will be focusing on international tourism, particularly tourism from the United States.)

What is the harm in destination images for Morocco? Unfortunately, oftentimes when a traveler arrives in Morocco (or any other place for that matter), his expectations based on destination image are not met by the reality. Baloglu and McClearly address discuss the idea of a person with the desire to travel developing “induced images” based on information seeking (via media, travel sources, etc.) that may or may not be much different from what they will actually see when they travel. One would think that as more people experience a destination, the information and images presented ahead of time to potential travelers would become more and more clear. Somehow, though, the discrepancy between the destination image and the reality perpetuates. Some of this can be explained by the concept of orientalism, which was introduced by Edward Said, who describes a place that is very stereotyped and exaggerated—“since antiquity a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes, remarkable experiences.” Although Said’s reference is to the Far East, the concept can apply to any place, like Morocco, which is exaggerated in its destination image.

In this blog, I want to explore some of the cultural memes that comprise the destination image of Morocco, where they come from and how they play out in reality. I also want to look at the reasons why the destination image of Morocco are not evolving and changing with the culture itself. Obviously a traveler will never be able to understand a culture on just a short visit, or be able to see and experience each aspect and idiosyncrasy that the culture holds. However, the goal of this is simply to explore some of the ambiguities and give a traveler a new perspective on what they should expect in coming to Morocco.