How we make Marrakech City Guide

How the site began

When I moved to Marrakech in 2005, the site started as a diary of discoveries more than a settled guide. I posted the addresses I liked, my thoughts on the monuments and gardens, a few recommendations and the scams I flagged without drama. I've always tried to inform positively, without tearing a place down out of pique or a bad memory: when an address disappoints, I say so, but I look for the reason a reader can use rather than the phrase that stings. It was a blog that gradually took on the shape of a guide - readers wanted bearings, not just moods.

After ten years on the ground, I moved back to France. The site could have stopped there. Instead it turned into a proper guide: local knowledge stays, but on its own it no longer supports an up-to-date ranking. We moved to an aggregative method - reader reviews cross-checked, a hard selection threshold, editorial curation on top. That method replaces one resident's eye with the words of tens of thousands of travellers writing after their stay.

The founding contract holds: select few, explain why, keep it current, inform without tearing places down.

Who's behind the site

Today I run MCG through SM4B, an independent editorial company based in France. I bring ten years of living in Marrakech, more than twenty years tracking the city in writing, and a network of local contacts who flag changes before they show up in public reviews.

Around me, the MCG desk in 2026 is a handful of trusted freelance writers who take on seasonal revisions, a review-aggregation engine that drives the selection (see our method), and a stance held collectively: editorial independence, funding through transparent affiliation, no paid placements.

Our method, in three sentences

We don't visit every address - that would be a lie: there are more than 400 riads in the medina alone, and as many restaurants, activities and day trips. We aggregate reader reviews from the major platforms (Booking and Hotels.com for stays, GetYourGuide, Viator and Tiqets for activities, Google Reviews and TripAdvisor for restaurants), we apply a hard threshold (average rating of 8/10 or better, with more than half of the reviews at 9 or above), and we rank editorially what clears it. An address that slips below the threshold drops out at the next site refresh.

Read the method in full →

How we make money

Booking links to Booking, Hotels.com/Expedia, GetYourGuide, Viator, Tiqets and Aviasales (for flights) pay us a commission when a reader books after clicking through from MCG. It's post-click: nobody pays to appear, nobody pays to climb a ranking, nobody has a say in what we write.

Read the affiliate disclosure in full →

Our sister site: Desert-Maroc.com

The SM4B group also publishes Desert-Maroc.com, a guide dedicated to desert trips in Morocco. When we mention Desert-Maroc in our pages (Merzouga, Zagora, multi-day circuits), we flag it plainly: it's our sister site, not a third-party affiliate link. No commission flows between the two.

What we don't do

• We no longer claim to visit every address in person: the aggregative method replaces that shortcut with an honest statistical filter.
• We don't publish comped stays, disguised editorial partnerships or sponsored content.
• We don't list an address that falls below the threshold, whatever an owner or agency asks.
• We don't lift a ranking for a partner: affiliate links sit on every eligible address, including those that don't convert.
• We don't tear a place down or punish an address over a bad memory. A disappointment is stated soberly, with what helps the reader decide.