★★★★★ Rated 4.5/5 — 204 Google reviews · 576 reviews · 5.0/5 on Tripadvisor · Written by a licensed Marrakech tour operator, on the road since 2011
Africa’s biggest tech gathering has made Marrakech its home — tens of thousands of delegates descending on the red city each spring — and for many attendees it is a first taste of Morocco squeezed between keynotes. This guide is for turning conference margins into an actual visit. (Editions run in spring; confirm the current year’s dates on the official GITEX Africa site before booking.)
The logistics that matter
Book the bed the day your ticket is confirmed — the city’s hotels fill and rates climb conference-week. The venue sits outside the medina, so choose your base by the life you want after 6pm: Guéliz or Hivernage for taxi-simple evenings, a medina riad if you are staying the weekend. Airport transfers, a SIM at arrivals (airport FAQ) and a WhatsApp-reachable driver solve 90% of conference friction.
The two-hour escapes
Between sessions the city offers real recovery: the Majorelle garden’s blue calm, a hammam that resets a jet-lagged nervous system, dinner on a rooftop with the Koutoubia lit. Jemaa el-Fna after dark is the after-party no sponsor can match.
The add-on days (the actual advice)
The delegates who leave happiest add 48 hours: the Agafay sunset ride (€30) or overnight (from €290) for desert-without-distance, the sunrise balloon (from €190) before a noon flight, or the 2-day Sahara run (from €300 per person) for the full postcard. All private, built around flight times — send us your schedule and we return an itinerary that respects it. Visa and entry basics live in the documents FAQ.
Everything on this page can be woven into a private itinerary — start from the travel FAQ, and we shape the rest around you.
Anas Benjelloun — Anas covers the practical side of travelling in Morocco — money, SIM cards, taxis, scams to sidestep, what things cost and when to book. He updates his pages the boring way, by checking, and takes a quiet pride in the fact that his airport-to-medina instructions have never stranded anyone. If a price appears in one of his articles, he has paid it recently.
