Hear the word Casablanca, and the mind inevitably turns to images of the classic 1942 movie : Humphrey Bogart puffing on cigarettes under the glimmering lamps of the famous Rick’s Café; an impeccably dressed Ingrid Bergman wandering through the city’s bustling souks; a kiss shared in the smoky haze of a Moroccan evening. And even if that vision of Casablanca immortalized in the film is a fiction in every sense—it was, in fact, filmed on the Warner Bros. backlot in Burbank, although that didn’t stop an enterprising local from opening a replica of Rick's Café in the city back in 2004—it’s difficult to imagine the film hasn’t played some part in Morocco’s decades-long journey to becoming one of the world’s most glamorous tourist destinations.
(For evidence of the latter, just take the endless roll-call of glittering five-star hotels in Marrakech , or the stylish house stays overseen by the expat community of Tangiers that draw in the world’s haute bohemians.) Somewhere along the way, however, Casablanca became known mostly as a waypost while traveling between the country’s better-loved tourist spots, or simply as an overnight stay for businessmen visiting Morocco’s financial capital to cut a deal. The arrival of the Royal Mansour Casablanca , however, is set to change that entirely.
Located in one of the city’s prime addresses—an Art Deco skyscraper and former hotel on the cusp of the Old Medina, first constructed in the 1950s and reemerging after.