Are Moroccan hotels good, and what do the star ratings mean?

Morocco has genuinely good hotels, but you have to read the market correctly. At the top end, the international and homegrown luxury hotels in Marrakech, Casablanca, Rabat and the resort areas are world-class — the kind of palatial properties with vast gardens, spas and faultless service that compete with anywhere. At the budget end, you find simple, clean, family-run hotels and guesthouses that are perfectly fine for a night in transit. It is the broad middle where you need to be careful, because that is where the star rating can mislead.

The thing to understand is that Morocco's official hotel classification is set locally and is generally a notch or two more generous than the European or North American equivalent. A property advertised as four stars may feel more like a solid three to a traveller used to Western standards — the lobby looks the part, but the rooms, the Wi-Fi or the maintenance can lag. This is not dishonesty so much as a different yardstick. So I never book on the star count alone; I treat it as a rough price bracket and let recent reviews and photos do the real talking.

My practical method, which I would give any traveller, is this. Look at reviews from the last few months, not years ago, because hotels here can slip or improve quickly. Read specifically for cleanliness, working air conditioning and heating, noise, and how staff handle problems. Look at guest photos rather than the polished press shots. And weigh location heavily — a modest hotel well placed beats a grander one stuck on a ring road. For business stops, airport nights or the new-town districts, a good international-brand hotel is reliable and easy.

But here is my real recommendation for a holiday in Morocco: for your city nights, a well-chosen riad will almost always beat a mid-range hotel for character, calm and service, and often for value too. Save the conventional hotels for the moments they genuinely suit — a luxury resort splurge, a practical airport night, or a modern base in a city's business district. Mix the two intelligently and you get the best of both: the soul of the medina where it counts and the convenience of a hotel where it does not.