The uncomfortable truth about doing business in Morocco
On respect, business in Morocco and the people behind your Moroccan experience...
A few weeks ago, I was sitting in a cafe in Gueliz, Marrakech with two friends. One is a Moroccan entrepreneur who runs a high-end logistics company; the other is British who organizes high end events. We were drinking nous-nous and talking about the current season, when the conversation shifted to a topic that usually only surfaces behind closed doors.
We realised we were all dealing with the exact same problem.
It did not matter that our businesses were entirely different. It did not matter that one of us was born here and two of us were not. The pattern was identical: international clients and visitors were treating us, and the professionals we work with, with a level of casual disrespect that they would never dream of deploying in their home countries.
This is not a conversation people like to have publicly. Morocco relies heavily on tourism and foreign investment, and there is an unspoken rule that you do not bite the hand that feeds you. But the reality of operating a business here; whether you are hosting artisan workshops, planning corporate retreats, or running a boutique hotel, is that the hand is often late, demanding, and entirely unaware of its own weight.
I want to talk about what it actually looks like to do business in Morocco, the assumptions people bring with them when they cross the border, and what it costs the people on the ground.
The “just a chat” economy
If you run a business in London or New York, and someone wants to pick your brain about your industry, your contacts, or your operational strategy, they understand they are asking for consulting. They might invite you for an expensive lunch, or more likely, they will ask for your hourly rate.
In Morocco, they send you a DM on Instagram.
The message usually starts with a compliment, followed quickly by a request to “collaborate” or “explore synergies.” What this actually means is: I am planning a trip/event/business venture in Morocco, and I would like you to give me the contacts, itineraries, and local knowledge that took you years to build, for free.
When I first started out, I answered these messages. I wanted to be helpful. I wanted to build community. I would spend hours detailing which artisans to work with, which transport companies were reliable, and how to navigate the specific bureaucracy of the medina.
And then, almost without fail, the person would disappear. Months later, I would see them posting about their “curated Moroccan experience” or their new sourcing business, using the exact contacts I had provided.
There is a gendered layer to this that is impossible to ignore. Women running businesses in Morocco; both local and foreign, are routinely treated as if their expertise is a community resource rather than a professional asset. I have watched female DMC (Destination Management Company) owners be spoken to by male clients as if they are personal assistants rather than the strategic leads of complex operations. The assumption is that because we are women, and because we are in Morocco, our knowledge is informal. It is “just a chat.”
It is NOT a “chat”. It is intellectual property, built through years of trial, error, and relationship-building in a country where relationships are the only currency that truly matter.
The geography of casualness
There is a specific kind of behaviour that international visitors seem to reserve for countries they deem “developing” or “affordable.”
It shows up in the way deadlines are treated as suggestions. It shows up in the midnight WhatsApp messages demanding immediate replies. It shows up in the assumption that a local operator should hold a venue for a corporate retreat without a deposit, absorbing all the financial risk while the client takes three weeks to get a signature from their finance department.
You would never do this to a Parisian event planner. You would never expect a five-star hotel in London to hold a block of rooms on a verbal promise. So why does it happen here?
It happens because of a lingering, often unexamined power dynamic. It is the soft residue of a much older story about who gets to be taken seriously and who is expected to be grateful. The underlying calculation, whether conscious or not, is that Western money is the most important factor in the equation. The local operator is expected to absorb the chaos because they are lucky to have the business at all.
But that assumption is dangerously out of date. Morocco is not waiting to be discovered. The country is in the middle of a massive infrastructure and investment drive ahead of co-hosting the 2030 World Cup. The professionals operating here: the event planners, the tour operators, the hoteliers, are working at a world-class level. They are increasingly choosing their clients, not waiting to be chosen.
The myth of “Inshallah time”
Whenever I bring this up, I hear the same counter-argument: But Morocco is so relaxed! Everything runs on Inshallah time!
This is where we need to make a crucial distinction. Yes, Morocco operates on its own time socially. If you are invited to someone’s home for Friday couscous, or if you are sitting with an artisan in the medina discussing a custom piece, time is beautifully fluid. That social rhythm is part of the culture, and it is one of the reasons I chose to build my life here.
But corporate business, the events industry, and complex logistics do not run on social time. They run on contracts. They run on deposits that need to clear before a venue will hold a date.
When a client delays a payment or changes a brief at the last minute, they often assume the local operator will just “figure it out” because things are flexible here. What they do not see is the frantic scrambling behind the scenes. They do not see the DMC owner calling in personal favours to keep a venue from releasing a date. They do not see the transport manager rearranging a fleet of vehicles at 2am.
And most importantly, they do not see who actually pays the price for their casualness.
The hotel owner with a corporate contract can probably survive a late payment. The artisan who travelled in from a mountain village for a large workshop that gets cancelled at the last minute cannot. That artisan rearranged their week, left their family, and paid for transport because they were told the booking was confirmed. When a visitor decides they “just aren’t feeling it today” and no-shows without paying, the cost is not abstract. It is a person who goes home empty-handed.
The uncomfortable mirror
I have been the visitor too. And I think this piece would be dishonest without that admission.
Before I lived here, I travelled to countries where I assumed the local way of doing things was simply less efficient than mine. I remember being frustrated with a supplier in another country because they did not respond on my timeline, without once considering that my timeline was not the centre of the universe. I remember expecting flexibility from people I would not have necessarily offered flexibility to in return.
Living in Morocco has forced me to see myself from the other side of the inbox. The first time a client treated me the way I had probably treated someone else years earlier, it was a physical feeling. That sinking recognition. Oh. This is what it feels like to have your time treated as less valuable than someone else’s.
I have also caught myself, even after years of being embedded here, sometimes slipping into old patterns. Expecting a Moroccan supplier to absorb a delay that I caused. Assuming that because I live here, I am exempt from the critique I am making. I am not. None of us are.
So yes, this is also a call in, not just a call out. Most of the behaviour I am describing is not malice. It is autopilot. It is inherited thinking that nobody ever asked us to examine. The first step in changing it is admitting that we all carry some of it, including those of us who have chosen to live here and who should know better by now.
How to do better: a practical guide
If you are planning to visit Morocco, host an event here, or build a business relationship with Moroccan professionals, here is what respectful engagement actually looks like in practice.
For visitors: If a local business requires a deposit or a signed agreement, provide it promptly. Do not assume you can just turn up and pay cash because you are in a country where things feel more relaxed. That relaxation is social, not professional. If you are asking a local resident or business owner for recommendations, itineraries, or contacts, understand that you are asking for consulting work. Expect to pay for it, or at the very least, acknowledge its value and ask how you can compensate them for their time.
Understand that Morocco is a relational culture, not a transactional one. The way you build trust here is through respect, consistency, and patience, not through speed and efficiency. If someone gives you an indirect answer, do not interpret it as incompetence; it is often the beginning of a conversation, not the end of one. And if you are offered tea before a business discussion, drink the tea. It is not a delay. It is the foundation of everything that follows.
Also, be aware that payment systems in Morocco work differently from what you may be used to. Bank transfers can take time, currency controls exist, and not every business has a seamless online payment portal. Ask how the business prefers to be paid, and respect that process.
For event and offsite organisers: Treat local operators as strategic partners, not fixers. The word “fixer” implies that the local person is there to patch things together rather than to lead the strategy. These are professionals who understand the terrain, the culture, the supplier relationships, and the logistics in ways that you cannot replicate from abroad. Trust their recommendations. If they tell you a timeline is unrealistic or a venue is unsuitable, listen to them. They are not being difficult. They are protecting your event from a mistake you cannot see from a distance.
When they give you a deadline for a decision or a payment, it is usually because a venue or a supplier requires it. Your delay does not just inconvenience them; it puts their local relationships at risk. In Morocco, the relationship is the contract. A local operator’s reputation with their suppliers, their drivers, their venues, is built on years of trust. When you delay a payment or change a brief at the last minute, you are not just affecting one event. You are potentially damaging a web of relationships that the operator depends on for every future project.
Do not micromanage from abroad. If you have hired someone to manage your event in Morocco, let them manage it. Sending seventeen emails a day second-guessing every decision is not diligence; it is a failure to trust the expertise you are paying for. The best events I have seen here happened when the client said, “I trust you. Tell me what you need from me and when.”
If your event falls near or during Ramadan, Eid al-Fitr, or Eid al-Adha, understand that the rhythm of the entire country shifts. Many smaller operations shut down entirely during these periods. Do not expect teams to work through the night to meet your delayed deadlines while you operate on a standard Western schedule. Plan around it. Ask about it early. Show that you understand you are operating within a culture, not above it.
For local operators and foreign business owners in Morocco: Enforce your boundaries. You are allowed to have business hours. You do not need to reply to WhatsApp messages at midnight. You do not need to give away your expertise for free in the hope that it will lead to paid work.
Require deposits. Do not hold spaces, book artisans, or secure transport without a financial commitment. If a client is unwilling to pay a deposit, that tells you everything you need to know about how they will treat the rest of the engagement. Build cancellation policies into your contracts and enforce them. A late cancellation fee is not aggressive; it is professional. It protects the artisans, the drivers, the venues, and the teams who are depending on you.
And walk away from bad clients. A client who is consistently disrespectful of your time, your expertise, or your team is costing you more than they are paying you. You are operating at a world-class level. You deserve clients who recognise that.
What happens when you get it right
I want to end with this, because the piece so far has been about what goes wrong. But I have also experienced what happens when it goes right, and the difference is extraordinary.
The best clients I have ever worked with did not micromanage. They did not second-guess every recommendation. They arrived with curiosity instead of assumptions. They paid on time, communicated clearly, and trusted the process. And in return, they received something that no amount of money can buy in a transactional culture: genuine access.
Access to artisans who opened their homes and shared techniques that are not on any tourist itinerary. Access to venues that are not listed on any booking platform because they only work through trusted relationships. Access to experiences that were shaped by years of cultural understanding, not a quick Google search.
That is what is available when you approach Morocco as a place with expertise rather than a place that exists to serve your vision. The country gives back enormously to those who meet it with respect. I have seen it transform corporate retreats into genuinely life-changing experiences. I have seen it turn a simple workshop into a story that someone carries with them for years.
But it starts with how you show up.
This is not a rant. This is a conversation that is long overdue. And if you are reading this as someone who is planning to visit, to host an event, or to build something here, I hope it changes the way you think about the people on the other end of your emails.
They are not waiting for you. They are building something. And they deserve to be met with the same seriousness, the same professionalism, and the same respect that you would bring to any partnership, anywhere in the world.