Mauritius built the template for luxury island property. Zanzibar is now writing the next chapter, from a bigger starting point than Mauritius ever had. This is the evidence behind that view, and the honest case for Mauritius too.

Executive Summary

We are stepping back from listing Mauritius and putting our Indian Ocean focus on Zanzibar. That is a judgement, not a verdict. Mauritius is a superb, stable, well-run market, and anyone who owns there has done well. But our job is to put clients where the gap between what they pay to get in and what the property can earn is widest. Today, that gap is in Zanzibar.

The case rests on three things. Zanzibar’s visitors are no longer just more numerous; they are spending far more per night, and luxury hotels have more than doubled in two years to serve them. Entry prices for branded, professionally managed property are still around half of Mauritius’s. And the two markets are moving in opposite directions on policy: Mauritius has just made itself more expensive for foreign buyers, while Zanzibar is opening its doors.

Twenty-Three Years and One Phone Experiment

Statistics tell you where a market has been. The phone tells you where it is now. Last year, before committing clients to Zanzibar, I spent a long stretch doing something unglamorous: calling hotels across the island, at every price point, and asking how full they were.

In most holiday markets, cheap rooms fill first and expensive rooms wait. Zanzibar had it the other way round. The budget end was empty, the middle was getting by, and the top was sold out. SafiraBlu, a five-star resort in Nungwi right next door to the Anantara Zanzibar site, was charging upwards of a thousand dollars a night in high season and filling without trying.

That pattern has a name in the industry: a flight to quality. It is what happens when a destination stops being somewhere people go because it is cheap, and becomes somewhere people go because it is special. I have been in this business for twenty-three years. I have seen that moment arrive in other markets, and I have usually seen it a year or two before the data catches up. This time the data is catching up quickly.

Not More Visitors. Better Ones.

The headline numbers are well known. Zanzibar welcomed a record 917,167 international visitors in 2025, up nearly a quarter in a year. Mauritius welcomed a record 1,436,250, up 3.9%. On volume alone, Mauritius is still bigger. But for a property investor, volume is the wrong number. What matters is what each guest is willing to pay for a night, because that is what your rental income is made of.

A visitor to Zanzibar spends roughly twice as much per night as a visitor to Mauritius. They stay shorter — around six nights against eleven — and still spend more per trip. That is the profile of a guest choosing a destination for its quality, not its price.

Two more signals point the same way. First, the supply of high-end hotels in Zanzibar more than doubled in two years, from 36 in 2023 to 79 in 2025, according to the Zanzibar government. Hotel groups don’t build luxury rooms on hope; they build them where their own data says the guests are coming. Second, independent travellers are spending more. Spending by visitors travelling outside package tours rose from $185 to $211 per night in a year, which tells you the growth is coming from people booking their own, better rooms rather than from discount charter flights.

The international brands have reached the same conclusion. Minor Hotels is bringing both Anantara and NH Collection to the archipelago, alongside a wave of other names. When the world’s hotel operators move into a market at the same time, they are telling you who they expect to check in.

What Mauritius Got Right

None of this is a criticism of Mauritius. In 2002 it opened its property market to foreign buyers through the Integrated Resort Scheme, and over the next two decades built the model every Indian Ocean island now studies: golf and beach estates, branded villas, residency for buyers, no capital gains tax, and a reputation for stability that few emerging markets can match. Foreign buyers still paid a median of over $1.2 million for a villa in early 2025. That is the price of a proven market.

Mauritius also offers things Zanzibar doesn’t yet. Foreign buyers can hold freehold in approved schemes; Zanzibar offers long leases. Mauritius has a deeper resale market, longer-staying guests and twenty years of track record. For a buyer who values certainty above all else, those are real advantages, and we would never pretend otherwise.

But success has a cost, and it is the one we look for most carefully: the entry price. Mauritius did so well that its prices now reflect its success. As I wrote about Cyprus and Montenegro, a market can be a great place to have bought and a harder place to buy. Mauritius is a great place to have bought.

Two Markets Heading in Opposite Directions

The most telling comparison isn’t where the two islands are today. It is where Zanzibar is now compared with where Mauritius was when its story began.

Measure	Mauritius	Zanzibar
Visitors in the year its story began	681,648 (2002, foreign buyer schemes open)	917,167 (2025)
Visitor growth, 2025	3.9%	Nearly 25%
Spend per visitor per night	About $130	$274
Foreign buyer purchase duty	Doubled from 5% to 10% from July 2026, with 10% on resale too	Investor residency for qualifying buyers and their families
Villa price per m² for foreign buyers	About $6,400 (median, early 2025)	About $3,000–3,300 (branded villa, Pemba, off-plan)
Airports	Mature, well connected	Passengers up from 840,000 in 2020 to over 2.4 million in 2025; Pemba being upgraded for international flights

Zanzibar is starting from a bigger base than Mauritius had, growing several times faster, and attracting higher-spending guests. At the same time, Mauritius has doubled the duty its foreign buyers pay, both on the way in and on the way out, and closed the route that let them buy outside its approved schemes. Mauritius is managing a mature market. Zanzibar is building a new one.

The Arithmetic That Matters: Your Entry Point

Here is the part most property marketing skips. Your return isn’t calculated on what the property is worth one day. It is calculated on what you paid to get in.

That is the whole thesis in one picture. The sweet spot for an investor is the combination of a low entry price and a high achievable nightly rate. Mauritius has the high nightly rates, but its entry prices have caught up with them. Zanzibar’s top-end rates are already arriving — you saw the phone calls — while branded property can still be bought for around half the Mauritian price per square metre. The gap between the two is the opportunity, and it won’t stay open indefinitely.

What Buyers Want Now

The other change I have watched over the past few years is in our clients. A decade ago, most wanted a beautiful standalone villa: something that photographed well and was theirs alone. Many of those buyers learnt the hard way what that means from a distance — finding guests, managing staff, fixing a pump from another time zone, and watching inconsistent management drag down both the income and the reviews. I learnt it with my own apartment in Cyprus.

Today, the majority of buyers we speak to want something different: a hospitality-managed asset. A suite or villa inside a resort run by a professional operator, which they can enjoy as a second home for a few weeks a year, while the operator fills it, maintains it and pays them the rest of the time. It is a second home without the hassle, and an income without a second job.

That is exactly the kind of property now arriving in Zanzibar, and exactly why the operator matters as much as the building. We set out how we test it in our Operator Standard due diligence report.

What Could Go Wrong in Zanzibar

A persuasive case should come with its own warnings, so here are ours.

• Growth is cooling. After a record 2025, arrivals have slowed in 2026 — June was up just 3.1%. Our view rests on the quality of visitors, not on growth continuing at 25% a year.
• Supply is coming. The same hotel boom that proves demand also adds competition for guests. Brand, location and operator will separate winners from the rest.
• Tenure is a lease. Foreign buyers hold long leases, not freehold, and there is no escrow for off-plan sales. The developer’s funding and record are your protection, which is why we check them first.
• Infrastructure is still catching up. Roads, power, water and Pemba’s airport are all improving, and all still being built.
• Liquidity takes time. As in every emerging market, selling takes longer than in a mature one. Buy to hold and use, not to flip.

Our Position

This is an opinion. It is built on public data, on time spent on the ground, and on twenty-three years of watching markets move from undiscovered to obvious. Mauritius remains a fine place to own property, and if its entry prices and nightly rates come back into balance, we will happily look again. For now, our clients are better served where the guests are spending more and the entry prices haven’t caught up.

We are not predicting that Zanzibar will overtake Mauritius next year. We are saying that it is already ahead of where Mauritius was when its own story began, that it is attracting a higher-spending guest, and that it is welcoming foreign buyers while Mauritius makes them pay more. If those trends hold, the question is not whether Zanzibar catches up, but how far beyond it goes.

The first project we recommend on that basis is NH Collection Pemba Island Resort, a branded wellness resort by Infinity Developments, operated by Minor Hotels’ NH Collection brand, which I visited in person. To discuss it, or Zanzibar more broadly, request the investment summary.

Sources

• Zanzibar arrivals 2025: Office of the Chief Government Statistician and Zanzibar Commission for Tourism, via The Citizen.
• Zanzibar spend per night, length of stay and package spending: Bank of Tanzania 2025 International Visitors’ Exit Survey, via TanzaniaInvest.
• Zanzibar high-end hotels and airport passengers: President Hussein Mwinyi, via Daily News; Zanzibar Airports Authority, via AllAfrica.
• Zanzibar 2026 arrivals: TanzaniaInvest.
• Mauritius arrivals and earnings 2025: Ministry of Tourism, via ATTA; length of stay: Statistics Mauritius, via AllAfrica.
• Mauritius 2002 arrivals: Ministry of Tourism and Leisure, cited in ProQuest.
• Mauritius foreign buyer prices, Q1 2025: Park Lane.
• Mauritius duty changes: KPMG Mauritius; PropertyCloud.
• Zanzibar nightly rates by tier: the author’s own calls to hotels, 2025.

This report is general market commentary and reflects the author’s opinion. It is not financial, legal or tax advice, and it is not a recommendation to buy any specific property. Every investment carries risk, and prospective buyers should seek independent professional advice before making any investment decision.