With the debut of an impeccable seaside villa turned hotel, Morocco's bohemian enclave is suddenly back on the map.
Chris Wallace is a New York-based writer and photographer. He recently published his first book, ⁘Twentieth-Century Man,⁘ about the late artist Peter Beard. His work has been featured in The New York Times, The Financial Times , and other publications.
In the aperitif hour in Tangier , visitors gather on the rooftops of hotels in the medina to watch the sun set over the Strait of Gibraltar. Turtle doves swoop and swerve in the lilac dusk. The lights of the port come up and reflect on the bay, where a grand old sailboat is putting to sea. To the east, the hunched backs of the Rock of Gibraltar and Jebel Musa, the Pillars of Hercules, loom in the distance, purple in the falling light.
There was considerable buzz around the hotel's opening, along with the hope that Villa Mabrouka, which means “house of luck” in Arabic, might finally make Tangier the kind of international destination that travel insiders have been predicting for the past 20 years — one capable of crossing over from a place that attracts mainly European travelers to a broader global market.
It's not for lack of trying. Efforts to make Tangier a hub for tourism and investment have been in full swing since 1999, after a mandate by Morocco's King Mohammed VI to revitalize this ancient port city, which also happens to be the location of his summer residence. Cranes have crowded the corniche for years. The gleaming new roads leading into the city center pass a parade of new stucco buildings — new neighborhoods, even. A new Waldorf-Astoria hotel is in the works that will have 115 rooms and suites. During my recent visit I heard the word “gentrification” more than once.
