MHG signs Anantara Resort in Zanzibar

Thailand-based Minor Hotels Group has signed an Anantara resort in Zanzibar.

Scheduled to open in 2020 as part of the Zanzibar Amber Resort mixed-use lifestyle community, the Anantara Zanzibar Resort will occupy in excess of 1,000 hectares of prime Indian Ocean coastline in the north east of Zanzibar.

The waterfront resort is to feature 100 guest rooms, alongside 50 one and two-bedroom pool villas.

Leisure facilities will include a spa and wellness centre, a gym, a kid’s club and a teen’s club, in addition to three restaurants and bars. There are also plans to introduce marine life and coral to restore and re-create a reef ecosystem.

Dillip Rajakarier, CEO of Minor Hotels, parent company of Anantara, said, “Anantara Zanzibar Resort will be the first property in the region to showcase Anantara’s authentic luxury and personalised hospitality. Whilst offering a unique addition to Anantara’s portfolio, the resort’s discerning guests will benefit greatly from the project’s integrated lifestyle facilities. We believe Tanzania has enormous growth potential in the tourism and lifestyle sector. The development of Anantara Zanzibar Resort marks a key strategic move that provides synergy and diversifies Minor Hotels’ well-established presence in East Africa, complementing the Elewana Collection of luxury safari camps, lodges and beach resorts in Tanzania and Kenya.”

Anantara Zanzibar Resort guests will have access to Zanzibar Amber Resort, a mixed-use project which will offer a retail souk, a tropical aqua park, a marina, an equestrian centre and international polo club, along with further hotels. In addition, Zanzibar Amber Resort will also feature East Africa’s first signature golf course, which is confirmed to be designed by Ernie Els.

The owning company, Pennyroyal (Gibraltar) Ltd., is working in close collaboration with local stakeholders, including the government and the Ministry of Environment, to master plan a self-sufficient and sustainably designed community with energy plants, agriculture, aquaculture and potentially an airfield in the later stages of the project.

Brian Thomson, Principal, Pennyroyal Gibraltar, said, “We are delighted to have Anantara as a founder hotel partner of Zanzibar Amber Resort, their distinctive lifestyle brand profile and commitment to creating outstanding luxury hospitality product being of significant appeal to us. We anticipate that this strategic partnership will bring Zanzibar Amber Resort to the attention of a modern, cosmopolitan, thoughtful traveller that represents exactly the kind of market demographic to which we aspire, and look forward to a successful and enduring partnership between Pennyroyal Gibraltar and Minor Hotels.”

Anantara currently operates 37 hotels and resorts in 12 countries, having recently added two new resorts each in both Sri Lanka and Oman.