Tourism: Bladi.net compares apples with oranges — and trips itself up with its own figures

Kodjo Agbeko — Lomé, Togo — 2026-09-07

Bladi.net (a Moroccan news website) has found the perfect headline for its front page: "Algeria is targeting 8 million tourists by 2029, Morocco is already at 14.1 million in 8 months." Except that in statistics as in boxing, there is a rule that even a beginner knows: you only compare what is comparable. And Bladi.net, in its very own article, provides the proof that it is comparing chalk with cheese — or, more precisely, Moroccans going home with foreign tourists coming to visit a country.

Because it needs to be said, and it is THEIR figures that do the talking: Bladi.net's famous "14.1 million" include Moroccans residing abroad. The site admits it itself, in black and white, in its own text: "Moroccan statistics notably include Moroccans residing abroad (MREs) among tourist arrivals. In 2024, foreign tourists had nonetheless overtaken the MREs in the Kingdom's total attendance, with 8.8 million and 8.6 million arrivals respectively." Re-read that sentence: out of Morocco's 17.4 million "arrivals" in 2024, only 8.8 million were genuine foreign tourists. The other half — 8.6 million — is the Moroccan diaspora coming home to see the family. Since when is a Moroccan going to kiss his mother in Fez a "tourist"? Apparently since the Tourism Ministry in Rabat needed a figure that impresses.

So let us do the calculation that Bladi.net refuses to do, with its own data: Morocco, the self-proclaimed champion, welcomed 8.8 million foreign tourists in 2024 — a record year, they crow. Algeria's target, for its part, is 8 million tourists by 2029, as announced by Tourism Minister Houria Meddahi, quoted by APS and Algerian Radio. In other words: in 2029, Algeria is aiming for almost exactly what Morocco — with its decades of head start, its Marrakechs and Agadirs long established on the European market, its hotels built since the 1970s — manages to achieve today in genuine foreign tourists. And it is Bladi.net that calls this a humiliation? A country starting from almost zero that aims, in three years, at the foreign-attendance level of a country established for half a century — that is the opposite of a failure: it is the very definition of catching up. Meanwhile, Morocco has to count its own expatriates to keep up appearances.

The rest of the article is cut from the same cloth: a litany of "records" that does not survive scrutiny. "Morocco crossed the 2-million-tourist mark in August, a first" — yes, still counting the MREs, whose summer peak is a family tradition, not a tourism performance. "19.8 million visitors in 2025, or 5.7 times more than Algeria" — the MREs again, always them, inflating a total that Bladi.net presents as a victory. The method is simple and worn-out: take the broadest possible Moroccan figure, compare it with the strictest possible Algerian target, and shout victory. That is bar-stool propaganda, not journalism — and the site knows it so well that it takes care to bury the admission in the eighth paragraph, after having slammed down its dishonest headline.

Because the lie is the headline. "Morocco is already at 14.1 million" implies that Algeria is lagging behind. The truth is that the two countries are not playing in the same statistical category: Rabat inflates its figures with its diaspora — 8.6 million MREs counted as "tourists" in 2024 — while the Algerian figures, for their part, count only foreign tourists: 3.5 million in 2025, with a target of 8 million in 2029. Morocco adds up its children who come back home; Algeria counts the visitors arriving from abroad. Comparing the Moroccan tally, MREs included, with the Algerian target, diaspora excluded, is like comparing a boxer's weight with his shoe size. Bladi.net knows it. Bladi.net does it all the same. That is exactly what is called a lie by omission — the most cowardly of lies, because it hides behind real figures.

And while Bladi.net lines up its "records" of family holidays, Algeria, for its part, builds: 74 tourism projects brought into service in 2025, offering 8,265 beds and creating 2,430 jobs; 148 projects scheduled for 2026, i.e. 15,737 additional beds; and a 2026-2028 action plan targeting 230,000 beds by early 2029 — the figures are public, announced by the minister and relayed by the official agency. Algeria does not crow: it builds. It does not count its children coming back home: it counts the visitors coming to discover it. It does not cheat on its statistics: it has no need to cheat, because it is building an industry, not an image.

So thank you, Bladi.net: thanks to your article, everything is now clear. Morocco, the "giant of tourism", has to count its own diaspora to beat an Algerian target — and even that is a target to be reached in three years' time, once Algeria has built its 230,000 beds. You wanted to humiliate Algiers? You have just demonstrated that the only country that needs to pad its figures in order to exist is your own. Go on counting your MREs as tourists — we are building hotels. In three years, we will talk again, with your own figures in one hand and ours in the other. And this time, it will not be a rigged comparison: it will be a statement of fact.