THURSDAY June 1, 2023
By Adam Ihucha
The Tranquility News Correspondent, Tanzania
A Tanzanian hospitality company has formally unveiled a plan to construct a five-star hotel at the heart of Serengeti National Park to offer high-end tourists unrivalled leisure.
An ultra-modern facility with 75 lavish residential units, dubbed Lake Magadi Serengeti Hotel, to be built on a hilltop near Lake Magadi in central Serengeti, would involve an investment of up to $18 million.
The local investor behind the ambitious tourist property, the Wellworth Hotels and Lodges, says the five-star hotel to be operational in the first quarter of 2024, targets both locals and foreigners longing for an exclusive luxury coupled with unparalleled landscape and wildlife views.
Apart from giving the country the potential for its first world-renowned hotel, the owner, Mr Zulfikar Ismail, is also linked to an ambitious project to transform the entire Tanzania’s northern tourism circuit into a leisure travel hub for the high-end local and foreign holiday makers.
“With its traditional elegant architecture and furnishings reminiscent of the early 1920s, the hotel will have 75 luxurious residential units with the capacity to accommodate 150 high-end tourists,” Mr Ismail tells The Tranquility Newsin an interview.
“Apart from business value, the whole idea of building a most luxurious hotel in Serengeti is to complement the government’s efforts to unlock the full potential for leisure travel,” Mr Ismail explains.
Owing to the successful Tanzania: The Royal Tour film guided by the Tanzania President, Dr Samia Suluhu Hassan, commanding influx of tourists from across the world, and the Chama Cha Mapinduzi’s election manifesto eying five million tourists, there is need for having top quality accommodation facilities to cater for the segment of visitors.
“So, our investment as Tanzanians, among others, intends to complement efforts by the government under the President, Dr Samia Suluhu Hassan, in stimulating tourism growth to achieve the five million tourists and $6.6 billion earning target by 2025,” Mr Ismail says.
Billed to be one of the world’s exclusive and luxurious hotel with an array of leisure ambiance, the Lake Magadi Serengeti promises the ultimate African accommodation experience for high-end tourists, while viewing bigger game around the hotel.
The Wellworth Hotels and Lodges Ltd, is one of the prominent companies running a number of top-notch hotels, namely Kunduchi Beach Hotel, Zanzibar Beach Resort, Tarangire Kuro Tree Tops Lodge, Lake Manyara Kilimamoja Lodge, Ngorongoro Mountain Lodge in Karatu and Oleserai Luxury camps in Serengeti.
Commenting on the project, Tanzania National Parks (TANAPA) says the Wellworth Hotels and Lodges Limited has been allocated the area through an official letter TNP/HQ/P.30/17 dated on June 04, 2015.
The statement signed by the Senior Conservation Officer in charge of Corporate and Public Affairs, Ms Catherine Mbena, indicates the wellworth Hotels and Lodges Ltd was awarded an area at Lake Magadi in Serengeti for the purpose of establishing a top-quality lodge after fulfilling all the requirements.
The custodian of 22 national parks says the local investor has followed all laid-down procedures and that the property, currently under construction, has ticked all boxes as far as park and the National Environmental Management Council’s (NEMC) regulations are concerned.
“The investor has acquired a property clearance certificate number EC/EIS/2435 issued by the NEMC on May 16, 2016, after having successfully undergone through Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA),” TANAPA says in the statement issued on Wednesday eveningΩ
