Magical Morocco conjures allure

A view of the Essaouira beach in the seaside city of Agadir, one of the hottest tourist sites in Morocco. [Photo by Yang Feiyue/China Daily]

Even their Chinese names (respectively, moluoge and monage) are similar enough that many people from the Middle Kingdom confuse them.

But the North African nation aspires to truly set itself apart from the European principality in more than name in the minds of Chinese travelers.

That is, to prove it's not a case of potato and potaaato but of apples and oranges.

While Monaco has long lured luxury travelers from China, Morocco remains less known.

Only 10,000 of China's 100 million outbound travelers visited Morocco last year. That's 0.01 percent.

The country aspires to lure 100,000 annually in the near future and twice that by 2020, Tourism Minister Lahcen Haddad says.

Policies will be implemented to help Chinese get visas within a week and streamline the overall process, he says.

It's mostly a question of putting it on Chinese tourists' map, officials believe.