Field Notes · 26 October 2026
Beach & Bush takes on hotels, lodges, camps and hospitality development sites in Tanzania and Zanzibar only where we can see value in them for the buyer, the seller and ourselves. We look for that value first in the site, in the room it leaves to expand or reposition, and in what a refurbishment would change about the way the property trades, and only then at the buildings and the asking price. This applies whatever the scale. A small lodge on a generous site with real headroom can justify more of our time than a large resort whose buildings and price leave the next owner nothing to do.
That is a narrower way of working than most brokerage in this market. Most brokers take whatever they are offered and present it at the owner's price. A well-built camp in the right place on the circuit and a block of owner-built villas priced to recover what was spent on them then reach a buyer described in much the same terms, and the buyer is left to apply the judgement the broker has not.
How we read off-market hospitality assets
We read every asset against the same three questions, in the same order.
The first is what the site is worth on its own terms, setting aside whatever has been built on it: its location, its size relative to the existing footprint, the room it leaves to expand or reposition, and how clear the tenure is.
The second is whether the buildings are worth keeping or are a liability someone will eventually write off. That comes down largely to whether they were designed and built with an architect or put up by an owner without one. Poor construction does not rule a site out, but it means the buildings carry little or none of the price.
The third is whether the asking price follows the real value of the site plus a fair premium, or follows what the owner needs to recover from their own spending. That is the most common reason we decline. A price set that way rarely moves on persuasion, because it reflects what the owner has put in rather than what the asset is worth.
These are a developer's questions, and they are the reason this brokerage is run by people who develop. Reading an existing building in practical terms takes someone who has built and operated hospitality in this market: what can be kept, what needs redesigning, where a refurbishment would change the commercial position, and where further spending would cost more than it returns. That reading is where the upside in an asset is found or ruled out. The same goes for placing the asset in the circuit it will trade in. Can it draw guests in its own right? Does it belong within a safari-and-beach itinerary? Would it work as a base for a particular activity, or serve guests already travelling through the area? And would a clearer position in that circuit, with an operator able to run it, change what it is worth?
What is coming to market in Zanzibar at the moment shows why the lens matters. Tighter tax and regulation are bringing a run of small, independently owned properties to sale. The number of enquiries has risen, but their quality largely has not: most were built without professional design or supervision, and most are priced well above what the site or the business supports. Many of these we decline. Where the site and the buildings would pass and only the price fails, we keep the asset on file and come back to it, since owners tend to reprice once the market has answered them.
Where an asset passes, the upside the assessment has identified still has to be delivered, and a buyer taking on a refurbishment, a repositioning or a part-built scheme needs more than an introduction. Development management and owner's representation are carried out through Ubunifu, the development practice run by the same people. The judgement that chose the asset therefore stays with it through design, approvals, construction and opening.
If you hold a hotel, lodge, camp or development site in Tanzania or Zanzibar and want to know how it reads against those questions, or you are looking for an asset that has already been through them, write to us at invest@beachandbush.africa.
Field Notes is written from the desk of the brokerage: occasional pieces on how this market actually transacts. Nothing published here refers to a live or identifiable mandate.