Construction d’une destination touristique d’arrière-pays : La « Vallée des roses » (Maroc)

The "Valley of Roses" (the lower valley of the Assif Mgoun, and a part of the Dades Valley), is a tourist destination being developped around a local specificity : the culture of Damascus rose. But although highly mediatized, especially through advertising brochures, the rose plays a minor role in the tourist activity, despite the efforts of the hotel managers and other local actors, travel agencies and public authorities. The rose mainly serves as of an original and catchy image for the region, which is reinforced by an annual 3-day festival, but nobody really tries to develop real activities centered on the rose. Therefore, the tourist destination per se hardly emerges, and tourists just pass by along their route towards more famous areas. The « country of the rose » is still to be invented.