Morocco is high on many travellers’ to-do lists, and some of them might still have the country’s biggest city, Casablanca, in mind due to the eponymous Oscar winner that’s become a legend since its release 68 years ago. But despite having a shimmering coastline and whitewashed Corniche, Casablanca is motivated by commerce and commodity rather than the tourist dollar. No longer lured by the rolling credits of Humphrey Bogart’s celluloid masterpiece, the movie stars and fans have long since taken the express train to Marrakech. But Casablanca still thrives in calling the shots from the director’s chair: and nowhere is this more apparent than on the coast of this bleached white city. The Moroccans understand that it’s time for the country
to change – and it is Casablanca that is in the spotlight.

“Welcome to the world’s most high-tech mosque,” announces Sadaq flourishing his arm like a director’s clacker board. Above us stands a 200-metre earthquake-proof minaret – the highest in the world. Straining my neck, he directs my attention to the prayer hall’s colossal retractable roof and numerous digital boom speakers. Then he points out the elevator, the escalator, under-floor heating, intricately carved cedar cupolas and exquisite mashrabiyyas (wooden lattice screen balconies). Somewhere beneath my feet lies an ablutions hall, decorated with Alice in Wonderland mushroom fountains, marble hamams and a bathing pool more suited to a five-star hotel or Grand Vizier’s palace.

Partly erected on water, in reference to the Quranic verse “the throne of God was on water’, at a cost of US$800 million, the Hassan II Mosque is the compass to which all of modern Casablanca points. “It was built by more than 10,000 craftsmen,” the tour guide proudly tells me. “Casablanca is the only place in Morocco or Northern Africa that could pull this off.” Its iconic minaret, adorned with scalloped keystone arches and ziggurat crenulations, thrusts directly towards the sun – as though the city was the centre of the universe.

Outside, from the mosque’s searing hot courtyard, a microcosm of modern Casablanca is at work, rest and play along the chalk-marked coast. Local fishermen cast lines like yoyos from the curved Corniche, wetsuit adorned teenagers body-board in the surf in the shadows of the mosque’s Moorish architecture and two of Northern Africa’s most ambitious retail and real estate projects develop at pace.

For the faithful and devout, the considerable beauty of Casablanca’s French colonial heritage pales in comparison to its wonders wrought for the glory of Islam. Yet dutifully bound to its heritage, Casablanca is equally focused on the promise of a prosperous economic future.

Settled by Berbers in the 7th century, Casablanca has long had a history of attracting migrants and foreign entrepreneurs. Portuguese influence and textile trade with the British during the early 19th century left its mark before the French sailed in to administer the south of the country as a protectorate. Today, its port, one of the largest artificial harbours in the world, is still a hive of activity. Be it from agriculture, tourism, fisheries or phosphates – the vein of the Moroccan economy as it controls two-thirds of the world’s reserves – Casablanca contributes more than 93 billion Moroccan dirhams to the kingdom’s GDP and represents the key economic trading node for the African-European region. With a population of 3.4 million, compared to the country’s total of 32 million, the city has half Morocco’s economy in its deluxe attaché case. Back in 1971, Moroccan women had an average of 7.4 children: today that number has dwindled to less than three as education and careers have taken priority.

“Casablanca is the first economic city of Morocco,” explains Bouchra Baha, director of communications and marketing at the Hyatt Regency, the city’s leading luxury brand hotel chain. “It’s not the same as Marrakech, which draws the tourist element, or Tangiers, which has its historical ties to Spain. Here, the focus is on banking, consultancy, telecommunications and offshoring. The textile industry is still prevalent here, as it always has been, but that market is being slowly eaten away by the rise of China.”

Whilst gambling, black marketeering and occasional WWII gunfire are definitely off the menu, the cinematic landscape of Casablanca in 2010 boasts headline-billing from foreign investment, multi-billion dirham coastal real estate projects and star-studded designer handbags. Walking through the city’s historic Place des Nations Unies and through Parc de La Ligue Arabe, I feel like I could be in any modern southern European city. Like Marseilles or Naples, it is an ethnic mix of Europeans, Arabs and West Africans: French mingle with Senegalese, Spanish do lunch with Malians and Moroccans share their city with an increasing number of incoming brand names. Changed days indeed: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and the Marx Brothers – stars of the 1946 A Night in Casablanca spoof – have been firmly usurped by Louis Vuitton and Coco Chanel on the white city’s Boulevard Mohammed V.

Considered the engine behind the development of the flourishing Moroccan economy as well as home to the Casablanca Stock Exchange, the Royal Moroccan Navy and nearly 60 percent of the country’s industrial labour force, the port city is an assembly line of developments. “There are numerous projects under way in Casa just now because the King is focused on developing the country to make it more attractive for investors and for tourists,” adds Baha. “The city is also becoming more dynamic: we have security here and diversity because it is a Muslim city in Africa but next door to Europe – it’s a very cosmopolitan mix.”

Casablanca knows how to keep good company too: perhaps coincidentally, it is twinned with fellow boomtowns (and cinematic backdrops) Chicago and Shanghai.

Of these touted projects and economic blueprints, the most highly anticipated are the Casablanca Marina, Foster + Partners-designed Anfaplace Living Resort and the two billion-dirham Morocco Mall – the largest shopping complex in North Africa. Add to this the construction of an extensive US$5.8 billion tram system, and it seems as though from Gare de Casa-Port to the affluent Eastern Anfa suburbs the entire Casablanca coast is under project. Reinforcing its commercial intentions, Casablanca is Morocco’s hub as the first country in North Africa to install a 3G network.

The tourism sector, thanks in part to the Hassan II Mosque, is also reacting to the change. From the Sky Bar on the Corniche, La Bodega and Al Mounia restaurants in the Liberté district to the fashionable new Medina in the Habbous quarter and the new luxury hotel developments – including rumoured ventures from the Four Seasons and Ritz-Carlton – travellers are on the rise. Anecdotally, around 80 percent of visitors to the city are businessmen from Europe, especially France, Spain, Belgium, England and Italy. There is an emerging market from the Middle East too and, helped by a strong dollar, American executives are again coming back to African shores to do business.

“This is our first office on the African continent, and it represents our commitment to the many business opportunities that are arising from this rapidly developing region,” explains Patrick Dupoux, partner and managing director of the Boston Consulting Group’s Casablanca bureau, which opened in April. “While the great recession shrank most economies, Africa has been able to grow. Casablanca in particular is a vibrant city and up-and-coming business centre.” This consultancy firm, one of the world’s most respected, will not be alone for long.

CasaNearshore, the largest IT and business park in North Africa, with its state-of-the-art technologies and tax incentives, has grabbed the attention of many global multinationals. Setting up offshore service centres has become tempting – Hewlett-Packard has moved in and Airbus and Boeing are rumoured to be following suit. Such is the rate of growth, that off-shoring and IT activities are already estimated to contribute US$500 million to the country’s GDP and the sector is expected to employ 30,000 people by 2015.

But what of the legacy left behind by Hollywood and Casablanca itself? Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, I stumble into the very one in Casablanca on my last day in the city. Before me is Rick’s Café, secreted between twin palms on Boulevard Sour Jdid. Although only established in 2004, the restaurant faithfully recreates the fictional saloon made famous in 1942, as though Humphrey Bogart and his entourage had never left town. The film was, in fact, shot on location in Flagstaff, Arizona, and at Warner Bros’ Burbank Studios in Los Angeles, but in Casablanca the spirit of Bogie and Bergman manages to live on in the wood, glass and plaster interior that was born from the imagination and determination of owner Kathy Kriger, an American woman formerly working as a commercial counsellor for the US Embassy.

“Bonjour, as-salam’leykum, merhaba and good afternoon!” greets the doorman. Through Rick’s Café’s curved whitewashed arches, sculpted balconies and balustrades – I see red-fez capped waiters perform for star-struck tourists, serving up a pan-Mediterranean mix of Moroccan salads, French grills and Italian ice creams. There is even the presence of the odd dramatic beaded-curtain and enough champagne flutes stocked behind the antique bar to help the most dedicated of Hollywood pilgrims slur out Bogie’s best movie quotes. As a muted piano tinkles the film’s signature tune As Time Goes By for no doubt the zillionth time, the piano stool remains conspicuously empty. With no piano player in sight, the best guess would be that he has fled to Portugal to escape the never-ending misquoted requests to “Play it again, Sam”.

The cosmopolitan set in the city, however, is probably more likely to be seen at Dar Biad restaurant and Six PM bar of the Hyatt Regency, which is very much part of the daily fabric of the city. Around 11pm, the time when most Moroccans congregate with friends and family for a late night dinner, Ingrid Bergman wouldn’t even get a look in.

Back on the streets of the Medina, the alleys are abuzz with life and business reverberates on every corner. For the time being, Casablanca and its cast of movielike characters can be proud of what tomorrow has in store. As time goes by, it really could be the beginning of a beautiful new friendship.