One of the many questions I’ve been asking myself while we were in lockdown since last March, was whether businesses in Ifrane would be able to survive the pandemic given that the city’s economic model is characterized by a heavy dependence on students and their consumption habits during the year.
Small businesses in Ifrane constitute one of the most important pillars of the student experience outside of AUI’s campus, as every establishment tries to cater to students’ interests through different concepts and deals that are interesting for students, faculty, and staff. They also play a crucial role in providing employment opportunities and contribute to the city´s economic development.
We´ve spent this week interviewing restaurant owners in Ifrane who shared with us their experience since last month and detailed how they struggled throughout the pandemic and its restrictions. While we understand that restaurants are not the only small businesses that exist in the city, we believe that this perspective will give a general overview of the situation to a certain extent, since restaurants are the most visited establishments in Ifrane by AUIers.
We don’t know if you’re going to finish reading this article or not, so this is why we take the opportunity to encourage you to support local small businesses in Ifrane either by diversifying your choices when you go out or ordering from campus whenever it’s convenient for you. This will enable young entrepreneurs and their teams (who are also sometimes AUI alumni or students) to survive the consequences of this pandemic.
Unexpected, and for some, a very bad timing
No one can argue that the pandemic’s effects could have been predicted when this year started. “It came in mid-march, we had a lot of expectations for the remainder of the semester, but we had to close everything in a matter of days” Bonsai and My Lil Rome’s manager, Hakim Berrada, told Chronicle. As decided by authorities in Morocco, all restaurants had to close and initially provide delivery-only service. Similarly, Otmane Barakat, Foodie’s manager, shared how he and his team had to shut down all operations after they were forced to also stop delivery service, few days after the announcement of the COVID-19 restrictions on the restaurant industry.
The situation was also very difficult for both business owners who were in the process of launching new concepts in Ifrane. “We were really struggling, particularly because we had just started working on the new Foodie Beldi’s concept. We were already committed as we had invested in a new location and started working on the project until we had to completely stop” said Otmane about the disruption of the launch of Foodie Beldi, a new restaurant focused on traditional Moroccan food. On the other hand, Hakim, who had just launched an Italian pizzeria called My Lil’ Rome before the pandemic, mentioned how difficult it was for the business to get started due to the unfamiliarity of students with the new concept. The disruption of all their planned marketing campaigns made it even harder for the business to start accepting new customers, making the restaurant’s launch unsuccessful.
We thought that this is just another thing that will make the headlines for a while and disappear
Otmane Barakat, Founder and Manager of Foodie
For You Restaurant’s owner Chihab expressed that the lockdown was unexpected, but was an opportunity for him and his team to take a break after many months of non-stop activity. He confessed that it wasn’t the first time they had to change locations or open in difficult conditions where no students or tourists were in Ifrane. Nevertheless, the situation got worrying after few weeks especially that no signs of re-opening the economy were apparent.
“7ebssat l7araka”, Ifrane’s economic shutdown
With all the restrictions that were imposed during the lockdown period, the economic and social impact on the local population started to get felt gradually. Chihab-Eddine Rouji, manager of For You, explained to us how the sudden stop of their activities had a lot of effects on their relationship with suppliers and their employees. For instance, restaurants had to cancel all orders for ingredients from their suppliers which led many of them to incur heavy losses. Chihab also mentioned that with the total halt of any source of revenue, it was becoming very hard to pay salaries which were reflected in the local community’s consumption habits. In other words, a snowball effect that had (and still has) terrible consequences on people’s lives.
The economic shutdown also hurt “Khalti”, one of the Marché’s most popular small businesses amongst AUIers. “Women who are working with us suddenly had no income whatsoever. Most of them didn’t have savings, or worse, had debts that they still had to pay. It’s really a difficult situation and we cannot simply abandon people who worked with us for years” declared Rafik Mahfoud, who manages the operations at “Khalti”. Rafik also complained about the huge amount of supplies they had to throw away because of the shutdown of their activities.
80% of our revenue comes from our business with AUI students, and that’s for most businesses in Ifrane. Some will tell you that tourism also plays a role, but really it’s all about students
Rafik Mahfoud, manager of “Khalti”
Hard decisions had to be made. Newly employed personnel had to be laid off according to many business owners while they attempted to support their existing employees to the best of their capability.
No support at all from the government or the local authorities
All business owners we have interviewed agree on one point: no financial support was provided to businesses in Ifrane during the lockdown by the government or the local authorities. For You’s Chihab acknowledged that even without the effects of the pandemic, small businesses in Morocco are usually left to their own despite the different challenges they might face in their adventure. Same echo from Foodie, Bonsai and Khalti’s managers who also shared that nothing was done to provide relief for Ifrane’s already fragile economic tissue.
Instead, all business owners had to pay rent, utilities, and taxes even if their activity was totally shutdown with no revenue for months. Chihab added that the majority of his employees were not able to unlock the CNSS’ relief package that was designated for employees who were affected by the pandemic. On the other hand, Foodie’s owner Otmane mentioned that the state-backed loans that were announced to provide relief for businesses (DAMANE OXYGENE/DAMANE RELANCE) are very hard to get and the amounts that are unlocked are not sufficient to cover 6 months worth of losses.
Even the loans that they said we could get were not a form of support, it was just a way to delay the problem
Hakim Berrada, Bonsai/My Lil’ Rome
AUI students coming back to Ifrane
Throughout our interviews, it appeared that businesses were following closely what the university was preparing for the Fall semester. Their plans relied on whether students will be able to come back on campus or not. With the announcement that new students will be on campus, many business owners shared with us that it was a relief for them, even if they saw many issues arising once they came back.
“It’s a difficult period but bringing only new students to Ifrane is a problem because they don’t know necessary where AUI students usually go” declared Rafik. In his view, the interaction between old and new students leads to a transfer of some sort of AUI culture where they share places that are typically visited by AUI students. Same response from Hakim who admitted that the brand identity of both his restaurants is closely related to the AUI community and the power of “word of mouth”.
Another issue that was raised by all our interviewees is the restrictions that were imposed by the AUI administration on exit/access to campus. While they acknowledge that safety is important, they believe that the current regulations are too strict for AUIers to go out and enjoy the city. The regulations have a big impact on the ability of businesses to restart their operations.
Planning is impossible
Planning for the future is an impossible task for business owners in Ifrane. Not only uncertainty still looms over the evolution of the epidemiological conditions in Ifrane, but their trust in the authorities’ decisions and their timing is also at an all-time low. Furthermore, a high number of small businesses in Ifrane were planning to go on a strike this week due to the very difficult conditions in which they operate as the city is in a lockdown (As of October 2nd, access to the city is restricted by police to Ifrane residents, workers and students only). These new developments show how vulnerable businesses in Ifrane are.
It’s impossible to plan for anything with these decisions that fall out of nowhere, we just try to do our best with the current situation
Chihab-Eddine Rouji, For You
Bonsai’s manager Hakim stressed also on the fact that more emphasis should be put on clear cooperation with AUI, where small businesses can work hand in hand with the university by making it easier to do deliveries, work on partnerships and diversify the dining options at AUI.
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