Interview with Surf Berbere Founder
Lessons from 15 years of experience in the Moroccan surf business
I sat down for a conversation with the founder of Surf Berbere, James Bailey. He runs a surf camp in Taghazout, Morocco. He shares his experiences and insights on how to make it in the surf business.
If you’re interested in learning more about his business or booking a trip, check out the Surf Berbere website here.
What inspired you to start a surf camp in Morocco and how did you turn that vision into reality?
We have a surf camp on the seafront with some accommodation. It was more step by step rather than a big grand vision from the outset. I was based in London where its raining for 6 months of the year. I went on holiday to Agadir in February 2007 and a friend from our rugby club recommended checking out Taghazout because it was good for surfing. So we had a look. We ended up staying a couple of nights in Taghazout and really liked it. I went back a month later and had a chat with the guys we were staying with. One of their brothers was selling an apartment on Hashpoint in Taghazout. I think I agreed a 3000 Moroccan Dirhams deposit, which was like £300 at the time. We shook hands and I signed some random paperwork saying I had three months to decide whether to complete the purchase. We then managed to hook in other people to help us buy another couple of apartments and convert it all into a surf school.
Did you have a Moroccan partner as well?
No. As a foreigner in Morocco you could own property in your own name. Its worth understanding the local legislation on property. The tricky bit is they have different rules for planning depending on where you are. In a city, you’re alright. But Taghazout is known as a rural commune so as a foreigner you can’t get planning on some stuff so you need a local partner. Having a local partner comes with helpful stuff if you have a good partner but it also throws up its own challenges.
What is maybe uniquely different, either harder or easier, about setting up a business in Morocco compared to say Portugal or the UK?
When we did it, I did 30 trips into Agadir to actually get the company created and it was a really slow and painful process. Even the bank account took a very long time. Whereas in the UK, you’re used to registering a company within 20 minutes and paying a small fee.
But Morocco has improved a lot and now you can create a company within a day so its not a painful process anymore. But I was on a bus into Agadir for all of August 2007 just to get a company started. So that was challenging. I think the biggest challenge was getting a good team. When you’re in a surfing destination trying to find the right people who are serious about the work can be a challenge. You have moments in the local area where you might be popular or unpopular for different reasons. I remember surfing at Anchor Point once and I paddled past about 6 surf coaches who I had to fire. Thankfully, none of them were mad at us.
It seems some of the skills needed are being able to set up a good team and being persistent enough to travel there 30 times. Is there any other advice you would give to someone who is wanting to start a surf business in Morocco?
A lot of perseverance is required. I think the nice thing about Morocco is that you don’t necessarily need a huge upfront investment. In some places, you need a small fortune to rent a place near the seafront. Morocco is quite good because you don’t need a huge amount of money to get started. Its more than it used to be but its still not a huge amount.
In life, you’ve got to crack on and give it go and if it doesn’t work, try something else. I studied economics but didn’t really do the business management side before getting going with this. When I got going I realised there were 30 other surf schools operating in the winter months and I probably wouldn’t have done it if I’d known that. Now, there are probably 200 in the area and I definitely wouldn’t have done it if that was the case back then.
You touched on the local community aspect. At times the relationship with the local community was good, at times it was maybe not so good. Can you talk about how you can make sure the local community is on your side?
There are two main parts to this. Firstly, we weren’t the first surf school to setup in Taghazout. One of the first schools to setup had hired local staff but had issues and ended up firing a few people. That had left a sour taste in the local area within the families that they had worked with. We’re very conscious of giving people two or three chances before we decide to part ways. We had one guy who was really good guy but didn’t have a good work ethic. I wrote down an A4 sheet of all the things that had gone wrong and worked with him to improve. A lot of patience is recommended with the local guys.
Secondly, we did a lot of work with the local community. We did huge beach clean ups where we spent day after day clearing rubbish from the streets and the beaches. We got four lorries full of rubbish away the first time we did it. About 60 of the local kids volunteered and we got everyone food and drink. We spent many days cleaning rubbish up and everyone acknowledged that we put in the hard graft to improve the local area.
The other thing we did was helping the local surf association that had been given a building by the King but they did not have any wetsuits or boards. So they were sat in an empty building unable to take the kids out to surf. So we actually made a pretty sizeable contribution to getting them all the boards and wetsuits that they needed to get going. It was a financial hit at the start but then we had a bunch more people going surfing. People knew we were genuinely trying to develop surfing in the area. It takes hard work to show that you’re serious about doing the right thing.
You’re in their country, You’re the guest. You have to try to do your piece
You’ve been doing this for many years now. How have trends changed over that time? How have habits of people changed?
Taghazout has definitely gone more upmarket. When we got started it was just pure surfing. Now, yoga has become a big thing and has been for the last 10 years. Whereas before, it was people in hostel style accommodation looking for a relatively cheap place to surf. Now there are more professionals coming for their one week of holiday a year where they want to learn to surf. Lots of families are coming now. The whole area has developed. Things like paddle boarding have become bigger in the last few years. There is always movements and changes. The question is can you move with the change.
Any predictions for the future? Is it going to be more families, more yoga and more high end? Are there other things we can expect from the future?
The biggest trend is around the healthy lifestyle side of it. We used to get one enquiry a week about dietary requirements ten years ago but now lots of people are really conscious about what they are eating. That side is becoming more important. Obviously, you have to fly to get to Morocco from most of Europe. It will be interesting to see how the aviation side develops. But as long as its raining in Europe and sunny in Morocco with good waves then its always worth a visit.
There used to always be the Royal Air Morocco internal flights but now the RyanAirs, EasyJets and Wizz Airs have started direct flights into Agadir. After covid, the flights have really kicked up a gear. There are also a lot more surf schools around now so it makes sense.
In terms of marketing, what strategies have proven effective for attracting guests to your place? How do you market to people?
Lots of trends have played out over the years. When we first launched you had the start of the Google search trend. The first website we did was in flash so it looked pretty good but it wasn’t indexed properly on Google. So then we had to get good at Google SEO. At the time, there were lots of travel agents who already had existing partners and they didn’t want to work with someone new. Unless you have existing relationships with travel agents, you have to go through all the hard yards to convince people to come to your place instead of the other 20 places nearby.
Then Facebook and Instagram came along. Surfing and the beautiful Moroccan countryside is very visually pleasing so marketing on these platforms works very well. Then covid hit and we basically turned the marketing off. After covid, suddenly everyone wanted to get straight back out so we had lot of people coming. We didn’t need to turn the marketing back on after covid, it was all word of mouth. Now, we don’t really spend much at all. Now its mostly returning guests and people telling their friends. So its a very nice place to be as we don’t have to spend any of our budget on marketing. But thats 17 odd years of graft and now word of mouth is working very well.
When you were doing social media, was it written content, images or videos?
It was images and videos. If you’re doing a video you have 10 to 20 seconds to make it stand out. It has to be visually impressive or include some comedy. Someone might spend 6 months looking at your instagram feed before they decide to book so you have to be pretty consistent at it.
If we were trying to grow bigger and bigger than we would focus more on marketing but we’re not trying to grow at the moment, we’re trying to keep it at a very nice level so word of mouth is working about right.
If you were trying to grow, where would you put those marketing dollars?
TikTok and Instagram Reels. But the challenge is you have to find the right content. There is no point in putting money behind content that is not quite right.
Can you share any anecdotes of any memorable experiences that guests have had at your place?
One group came from America for filming and they were big skiers and snowboarders and they had managed to do a little bit of that in the Atlas mountains. They had sort of over-egged how good their surfing ability was. We had assumed that since they were extreme snow boarders we could take them out for some big waves but they kind of struggled there. In the end though, they were thrilled to do the combination of snowboarding and surfing.
Early on we had some of the rugby boys from Wasps come. Part of their insurance is that they agree not to do anything silly. They were loving the surfing but the only problem was they would eat 6 meals a day and each meal was a about double what a normal person might eat. So you had these absolutely huge guys working up an appetite and then coming back for more food.
There have been lots of good parties. Our roof terrace comfortably fits 30 people but some of the early roof parties we had, particularly around new years, we had about hundred or more people come in. We had the local gendarmerie decide that they wanted to join. It was quite handy as two of them were stationed as bouncers on the door. We also had a few of them getting absolutely hammered on the roof. This was about 15 years ago now by the way. So you see all these guests looking around and there are these big Moroccan police officers dancing in the background. It was a good image doing shots with Moroccan police. Lots of funny things have happened over the years.
Are you a surfer? How do you balance wanting to surf the whole time with managing a business?
It was all manageable until you have a wife and kids then the balance goes out the window. Just don’t let my wife read this article. When you’re based by the ocean you’re still going to get in the water a fair bit but you just have to keep a balance between the work and the fun. Once you have a good team, you should be able to carve out the time that you need
Any tips or tricks around hiring? This comes up again and again as a big challenge in any tourism business. It can be hard to get great and reliable people on your team.
You’ve got to have pretty good processes and you need to set expectations of what people are doing in their roles. You have to follow up with people on those expectations. The important thing is you need a core of people who really care about their job. That way if you get someone new who isn’t pulling their weight then the existing team will give them a push.
When I was first hiring I was in my 20s and the people we were hiring were also in their 20s. Now we’re in our 30s and 40s and so now the new young guys who come in are surrounded by older people. So culturally its not as hard as it was when were getting started.
The challenge is setting up a culture where everyone is keen to do the work, they are motivated to get up at 7am to make sure that guests have a great breakfast.
To end I’d like to look into the future. You have experience in Taghazout and it seems you came there when it was first developing as a surf destination. Now its a high end place and its very well known. Do you have your eyes on any other places around Morocco or abroad? Are there any other destinations that you think are up and coming?
Taghazout is unique because of the weather and the waves. Most of Europe is accessible easily. It has lovely weather from September through to April. That combined with the fact that Morocco has developed on leaps and bounds over that period. We got fibre internet at our surf camp. I still don’t have fibre internet in my house in London. We got fibre in Morocco ten years ago and we got it within two hours of paying Maroc Telecom. Morocco has had a cracking run of it and will hopefully keep going. When you’re looking at places, it not just about whether there is a great surf beach in your area, thats important but you might be there for the next ten, twenty or thirty years. You’ve got to have a long horizon on your outlook. When you’re in your 20s you might not be viewing it that way. We run surf instructor courses and some of the guys have gone to Chile, Nicaragua and other places. They have been successful and doing great. There are many places out there but it may not be within a four hour flight fro most of Europe. When you go travelling you might find these magical places and you have to decide whether you want to be there for the next twenty years. If you do then have a go!