Wellness events · Morocco
Wellness and culture weeks in Morocco,
designed and run end to end.
Retreats, seminars, team-building weeks and brand launches for people who already have a community. You bring the people and the reason. We carry the logistics, the places and every hour on the ground, from Marrakech to the Sahara.
Three materials in every week
Every week we build holds the same three materials. The region decides the colour; the group decides the balance.
Stillness and relaxation
The hours a group keeps for itself
Phones put away on the first evening, silence kept on purpose, guided meditation and breathwork, long massages, and a sunrise hike walked in silence. This is the part of the week a group protects, and the part it talks about afterwards.
Recovery and movement
A body looked after, then put to work
Hammam, cold water, massage and mobility come first. Then surf, tennis, padel, gym and long hikes, inside the same day rather than added to it, with recovery built into the week rather than booked beside it.
Arts and local culture
Taught by the people of each region
Music, Moroccan cooking and craft, in the workshop where they belong: a potter's wheel, a loom, a village kitchen, a brotherhood of musicians at nightfall. Arranged for one group, for one week, for one date.
What we produce
Eight kinds of event, each with its own buyer and its own page. They share one thing: the client arrives with the community already formed, and needs someone to carry the country underneath it.
Studios, gyms and clubs
Community retreats
A dedicated departure for your members, one studio per destination and season. You bring the teaching and the people; the week runs on our ground.
How it works →
Yoga and pilates teachers
Yoga and pilates retreats, and training modules
Rooftops, dunes and Atlantic light as the room. Retreat weeks and teacher-training modules with daily practice built around heat, silence and sleep.
How it works →
Sound-healing and breathwork practitioners
Sound and breath immersions
You bring the practice. We bring what it needs and a city cannot give: real silence, a night sky with no light in it, and a camp sixty kilometres from the last road.
How it works →
Companies and HR teams
Corporate wellness seminars
A working week where sleep, food, movement and daylight are handled. The session at nine, the terrain at four, one long table at night.
How it works →
Leadership and team leads
Team building that is not a game
A shared piste, a long walk, a night in the erg. Hierarchy goes quiet by the third dinner, which no facilitated exercise achieves on its own.
How it works →
Beauty, wellness and sport brands
Brand launches, press and creator trips
Launch a product where nobody else can shoot: the Sahara, the Atlantic at Taghazout, the medinas of Marrakech and Essaouira. Press, creators or your best customers, hosted as a retreat.
How it works →
Wellness, longevity and aesthetic clinics
Client weeks for clinics
Your clients, your practitioners and protocols, our ground. We are not a medical provider and make no health claims: we operate everything around the care.
How it works →
Beauty houses, skin studios and urban spas
Client weeks for beauty houses
Your clients have sat in the same chair for years. A week hosted by you and run by us: the hammam ritual in the morning, your own treatments at midday, the country in the afternoon.
How it works →
Sport, wellness, longevity, recovery
We build the week around what your group already does.
Every week starts from the discipline the group brings. You bring the people and the practice; we build the wellness, the recovery and the whole ground around it. Groups of eight to twenty, one group at a time, nothing shared with anybody else.
Golf
- The group brings
- A club, a society or a group of members who play together and want a week that is not only golf.
- We build around it
- Yoga to keep shoulders and hips moving between rounds, massage and hammam at the end of the day, and food that does not undo the morning.
- Where
- Around Marrakech, and on the coast at Agadir, with the Atlas an hour away for the days nobody plays.
Tennis and padel
- The group brings
- Club members who already travel for tournaments and already pay for it themselves.
- We build around it
- Yoga for the shoulder and the back, deep-tissue work and hammam, and a court schedule built around the heat rather than against it.
- Where
- Marrakech and the Atlantic coast.
See a week like this→
Surf
- The group brings
- A school, a studio or a group that surfs together, from first waves to confident.
- We build around it
- Pilates and mobility on the days the sea is flat, cold water and structured recovery on the days it is not.
- Where
- Taghazout and Essaouira, from September to April.
See a week like this→
Kitesurf
- The group brings
- Riders who want wind they can count on and a week that is not only riding.
- We build around it
- Breathwork, mobility, long sleep, and evenings that make the early starts possible.
- Where
- Dakhla, between desert and ocean; Essaouira in the windy months.
See a week like this→
Road and mountain bike
- The group brings
- A club used to riding together, with its own pace groups and its own season.
- We build around it
- Massage every evening, hammam, and a rest day that is genuinely a rest day.
- Where
- The High Atlas passes, the Anti-Atlas in winter, and the piste down to the desert.
See a week like this→
Fitness, strength and hybrid
- The group brings
- A gym, a box or a hybrid community with a competitive season and a taste for hard weeks.
- We build around it
- Structured recovery: cold water, hammam, sleep, mobility, and one day that asks nothing at all.
- Where
- Marrakech and the Atlas, with the dunes for the last two days.
See a week like this→
Sound, breath and meditation
- The group brings
- A practitioner and the people who follow their practice.
- We build around it
- Silence a city cannot give, a sky with no light in it, and hammam and bodywork between sessions.
- Where
- Erg Chigaga, sixty kilometres of piste past the last tarmac, with no other group on it.
Yoga and pilates teachers
- The group brings
- Your own students, or a training cohort that needs contact hours.
- We build around it
- Rooftops and terraces to practise on, a room that works six hours a day, and food, sleep and recovery handled.
- Where
- Marrakech, Essaouira, and the desert for the last nights.
See a week like this→
Companies
- The group brings
- A team, a leadership group, or a season of successive cohorts.
- We build around it
- The working session in the morning, terrain in the afternoon, and sleep, food and recovery treated as the point rather than the decoration.
- Where
- Casablanca, Rabat, Marrakech, Tangier, and the Sahara to end.
See a week like this→
Your combination is not on this list? Then the list is incomplete, not the week. Tell us what your group does and we will write the week around it.
These weeks are private from the first transfer to the last night: exclusive use of the places, one group at a time, partners chosen discipline by discipline, and a proposal written for your group rather than a seat sold from a catalogue. We give the figure in the first exchange.
What an agency means here
Anyone can book a riad. What a client cannot do from abroad is carry a country: the vehicles, the timing, the suppliers, the places that are not for sale online, and the evenings that cannot be bought. That is the work.
The logistics
Every hour on the ground
Our own vehicles and drivers, every transfer from the airport to the last piste, permits and protected-area access, suppliers paid and checked, a run-of-show written down before you land, and an Umnya lead with the group from the first transfer to the last. International flights, insurance and visas stay with you; everything on the ground in Morocco is ours.
The places
Nothing booked from a catalogue
Riads, kasbahs, guesthouses in Berber villages and a permanent camp of our own in Erg Chigaga, with its own helipad and no other group on it. Every place was found, visited and slept in by our team before it was offered, and every one is used by one group at a time.
The experiences
What cannot be bought
A night with the nomad families who live in the erg. Dinner at one long table on the sand. Surf at nine in January, hammam at six, sound under a sky with no light in it. Chosen for the group in front of us, never pulled from a list of activities.
Luxury, in the practical sense.
Not gold taps. One group at a time. Places nobody else can book. A bed that lets people do the next day properly after a day of walking or surfing. Food cooked that morning from the cooperatives we buy it from. And nothing, at any point, left for the client to arrange.
That is what the brands, studios and companies who come to us are actually buying: the certainty that the week will hold, and a setting their own people have never seen before.
How a project runs
Six steps, the same for a twelve-person team offsite and a brand launch with press.
01
The brief
One conversation: who is coming, why, when, and what the event must leave behind. It costs nothing and commits nobody.
02
A written proposal within a week
Terrain, programme, places and an all-in figure for everything on the ground. We give the figure in the first exchange rather than publish it.
03
Places and dates held
We hold the places and dates you choose while the proposal is discussed, so nothing you liked disappears before you decide.
04
Production
Suppliers, vehicles, schedules, dietary requirements, room plans and the run-of-show, written down and shared, so nobody on your side has to hold it in their head.
05
On the ground
An Umnya lead travels with the group from the first transfer to the last. Plans change during the week when the group needs them to, and you hear about it rather than manage it.
06
After
Photographs and film handed over when the event includes them, and a debrief on what to keep for the next edition.
Beyond producing events
Running events in other people's places for years teaches you what those places get wrong. Three lines of work follow from that: advising the people who build wellness places in Morocco, operating the wellness side of their assets, and giving investors an independent reading of it.
Consulting
Wellness and hospitality consulting
Feasibility, positioning, programme design, recruitment, opening. Then the mandate to run it, when that is what the project needs.
Consulting→
Wellness real estate
The wellness side of a development
For developers, owners and residence programmes: the club, the spa, the recovery floor. Designed, branded and operated.
Wellness real estate→
Investment advisory
Wellness investment in Morocco
For owners, developers, family offices and operators: an independent reading of the wellness side of a project, then the concept, the operator and the partners.
Investment advisory→
Market entry
Opening in Morocco
For wellness and hospitality brands: market, sites, partners, permits contacts, architects, works follow-up and opening, or one flagship event.
Market entry→
The eight terrains
The same four questions, asked of every destination.
Everywhere else on this site each place gets its own paragraph. Here they answer the same four questions in the same order, so you can weigh one against another instead of reading eight arguments.
| Where | The ground | When it works | Getting there | What a week there does |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marrakech and the Atlas | Medina, palmeraie, and a mountain pass an hour away. | September to June. July and August are hot. | Its own airport, direct from most European cities. | The easiest first week, and the road that leads to the desert. |
| Casablanca | The working city, on the Atlantic, almost without tourism. | All year. | The only Moroccan airport with nonstop flights from New York, Washington, Miami and Sao Paulo. About seven hours from JFK. | The shortest distance between an American office and the Atlantic. |
| Rabat | Administrative capital, coastal, quiet. | All year. | Its own airport, or an hour from Casablanca by train. | The quietest option, and the one to choose when the week is genuinely a working week. |
| Tangier | The strait, with Spain visible across it. | April to October. | Its own airport. A short hop from Madrid, Paris or Milan. | Europe's doorstep, for a group that cannot afford to lose a day to travel. |
| Essaouira | A fortified medina, wind, and the Atlantic. | All year. Windiest from April to August. | Two and a half hours from Marrakech by road. A small airport of its own. | The easiest place we know to slow a group down. |
| Taghazout | Surf, long beaches, and cold water in January. | The surf season runs September to April. | Agadir, under an hour by road. | Getting a group outdoors by nine without anyone having to ask. |
| Dakhla | A lagoon between desert and ocean, in the far south. | All year. Wind strongest from April to September. | Via Casablanca. The longest journey on this list. | The most committed choice, and the one that changes people most. |
| Erg Chigaga, the Sahara | Our own camp, sixty kilometres of piste past the last tarmac, with no other group on it. | Late September to early June. The camp does not open in July or August. | 450 kilometres south of Marrakech by road, then the piste. Helicopter to the camp's own helipad. | Where a week ends, and the part everyone describes afterwards. |
Seasons are the reason our departures fall when they fall, not a preference. If a month you want does not appear beside the terrain you want, say so and we will tell you which of the two to move.
Four ways in
The question is not whether we take small groups. It is which week is yours.
We build weeks around eight guests because at four an empty seat costs more than a third of what the week earns, and a group that size stops carrying itself. That is a reason, not a door policy. Below eight there is still a way in, and it is the first one here.
From one guest
Join a published departure
Dates already set, a programme already built, and other people at the table. Come alone, as a couple, or as a family of five. This is how we take everyone under eight, and it is what most guests would choose anyway.
See the calendar→
Small groups, on application
Take a route that already exists
Six built journeys with no fixed date: Atlas bikes, a nomad trek, the roses, the Atlantic. You choose the route, we put your own people on it and build the dates around them.
See the six routes→
Eight to twenty
Privatise a retreat, or start from a blank page
An existing Umnya week with nobody else on it, or a week that does not exist yet: your terrain, your rhythm, your reason for going. Written proposal within a week.
Commission a week→
You already have the group
Bring the people who follow you
Studios, clinics, coaches, clubs and companies arrive with a community already formed. You bring the people and the teaching. We carry the ground: vehicles, permits, camps, food, guides, and the week itself.
How hosting works→
If you are not sure which of the four you are, say so in one line and we will tell you. It costs us an email and saves you a proposal built for the wrong week.
Questions a planner asks first
- What does a wellness events agency in Morocco actually do?
- It designs the event and carries everything underneath it. Umnya writes the programme, chooses and holds the places, runs every transfer in its own vehicles, books and pays the local suppliers, handles permits, and keeps a lead with the group from arrival to departure. The client brings the community and the purpose of the event.
- Do you organise team building in Morocco?
- Yes, as part of a wellness week rather than as a stand-alone game. The team-building happens on a shared piste, a long walk in the Atlas, a night in the erg and one long table every evening. For a working seminar the mornings hold the sessions and the afternoons hold the terrain.
- Can a brand launch a product as a wellness retreat in Morocco?
- Yes. Umnya hosts launches for press, creators or a brand's best customers as a retreat of three to seven nights, with shoots possible in the Sahara, on the Atlantic at Taghazout, and in Essaouira and Marrakech. The brand keeps the product story; Umnya carries the logistics and the places.
- Do you organise yoga, pilates and sound-healing retreats?
- Umnya runs them for teachers and practitioners who bring their own practice. It provides the rooms, the rooftops, the dunes, the silence, the food and all the logistics, and can source a teacher when the client does not bring one.
- How many people can you take?
- Most events run from 8 to 20 people, one group at a time, which is the size at which a wellness week still works. Larger companies run the same programme as successive cohorts across a season rather than as one large event.
- Which cities and landscapes can an event use?
- Marrakech and the Atlas, Casablanca, Rabat, Tangier, Essaouira, Taghazout, Dakhla and the Sahara at Erg Chigaga, where Umnya owns a permanent camp with its own helipad. An event can combine a city and a landscape.
- Do you arrange international flights?
- No. International flights, travel insurance and visas stay with the client. Everything on the ground in Morocco, from the airport onward, is Umnya's.
- How far ahead should an event be planned?
- Three to six months is comfortable for most groups. Peak desert weeks between October and April are best held earlier, and the camp does not open in July or August.
- Do you work with event agencies and DMCs abroad?
- Yes. Agencies, incentive houses and tour operators use Umnya as their ground in Morocco under their own brand, with the client relationship staying theirs.
- What makes an Umnya event luxury?
- Exclusive use, places that cannot be booked online, comfort treated as what makes the next day possible, and nothing left for the client to arrange. The standard is set by the places and the logistics rather than by decoration.
- Do Umnya's events combine wellness and culture?
- Yes, and the two are built into the same week: stillness, recovery and movement on one side; music, Moroccan cooking and craft taught by the people of each region on the other. The balance between them is set by the group, and the region decides the colour.
- What cultural workshops can a group actually do?
- Pottery at the wheel, weaving at the loom, brass and leather in the workshops of the medina, Moroccan cooking in the house it belongs to, and music, including the Aissaoua brotherhoods of Meknes and Fes. Each one is arranged for one group, one week and one date. The region decides what is available: harvests in the valleys are seasonal, and the best teachers are held months ahead.
From the Journal
4 min read
Planning a Group Retreat in Morocco: A Practical Guide
Organising a group retreat in Morocco involves more variables than booking a holiday: terrain, transfers, programme balance and the size of the group itself all shape the outcome. This guide sets out the practical decisions, in the order they need to be made.
4 min read
Corporate Wellness Retreats in Morocco: Why Executive Teams Choose the Sahara Over Mallorca
The corporate retreat market is shifting. C-suite teams that once settled for a golf resort in Spain are increasingly asking for something more demanding, more transformative, and more memorable. Morocco, and specifically its extreme landscapes, has become the answer. Here is why it works, and what the return on investment looks like.
4 min read
Women's Group Retreats in Morocco: What a Private Circuit Actually Delivers
Eight to fourteen women. A circuit designed for them, not a catalogue. What makes a private women's group retreat in Morocco different, and why the group format transforms the experience.
Tell us about the event.
Who is coming, roughly when, and what it has to achieve. A written proposal follows within a week.
Brief us on an event→Or write to journeys@umnya.co. No prices on this site: every figure is given in the first exchange.
Already know what you want to organise? Tell us, and we find the places and the partners. Plan a retreat or an event→
Before the dates exist
Tell us when. We will tell you where.
We open a small number of weeks each season. Choose the window you have in mind and what you come for, and you will hear about those dates before they are published.
Which window?
What you come for