RICHARD PAGE – PWA TOUR MANAGER
We have been in touch with Boujmaa for several years in order to try and help him realise a PWA event in Morocco, and he has been working on the project in one form or another since 2012. Last year the event first came to fruition as a PWA Qualifier event, which was the first step towards a
full-blown World Cup, something which we had initially hoped may be possible in 2018. Although we did not quite reach that objective, there was still the possibility to have a Women’s World Cup, as this required less in terms of budget and infrastructure, due to the smaller fleet size.
Being able to plant the World Cup flag on Moroccan turf was an important second rung on the development ladder of the event and has helped to maintain the momentum of growth, as well as providing a valuable event for the women’s division. There have been efforts within the PWA to promote the women’s side of the sport, as we believe that it is significantly underutilised and undervalued by the existing set of events and event sponsors. Stand alone women’s events have enormous potential for growth, compared to the men’s events, and open the sport up to an entirely new range of media and sponsors, that perhaps do not realise the talent and the value of the women’s side of the sport, when they are only ever seen as a subset of events also including men. This makes events like Morocco (even with the men’s qualifier alongside) incredibly important to prove that value, raise awareness of that potential, and develop more women only World Cup events. Stay tuned for some exciting news about women’s events in 2018 coming very soon….
Of course, in the case of Morocco, the development of the event is very important, not just for the PWA, but for the development of windsurfing tourism to the area. Moulay shares many parallels with Pozo of 25 years ago, when the first World Cup events were held there. The government and tourism authorities of Gran Canaria saw the potential for tourism in what was a sleepy, backwater fishing town, with not much more than a dusty, windswept pile of rocks disappearing into the sea. Pozo is now a thriving destination for windsurfers with properly developed facilities, bars, restaurants, an international windsurfing centre and modern accommodation, much of which has been built off the back of the promotion and credibility created by the regular hosting of a World Cup event. It has also created countless opportunities for local kids to have great careers in the sport and we would love to bring those opportunities to the youth of Morocco too.
What it takes for events in new and remote destinations to happen, more than anything else, is someone on the ground with the motivation, passion and drive, to make it a reality. Boujmaa has that drive in abundance, and we look forward to continuing to work with him, his team and the local communities of Moulay and Essaouira, to continue to build the event, and the sport, in Morocco.
“Stand alone women’s events have enormous potential for growth.”