International hospitality groups are increasingly looking to acquisitions and partnerships with established African tourism companies as a faster route to expansion than developing new businesses from scratch.
One of the latest deals is Banyan Group’s purchase of a 70% stake in Newmark Hotels & Reserves, which manages properties across seven African countries.
Another recent transaction is the acquisition of Zambia’s Chiawa Camp and Old Mondoro by SUJÁN, the Indian luxury safari and wilderness hospitality company.
Buying versus building
David Desta, Vice President at JLL Hotels & Hospitality Africa, says “prime concessions are scarce and tightly regulated” so it is often easier to buy an operator than create one.
“An acquisition or partnership gets you operating camps or lodges, an experienced team and established distribution while skipping the development and ramp-up phase,” Desta says.
He cites the 2025 acquisition of Pollman’s Tours & Safaris in Kenya, backed by private equity investor Alterra Capital Partners, as an example. “It gave the buyer scale on the destination management and tour operating side.”
Auberge Collection is another example although through a partnership rather than acquisition. “Auberge partnered with two lodge operators that combined to make up a nine-camp luxury portfolio in Tanzania in 2026, which gets the brand into the market without a multi-year build,” adds Desta.
The same logic is behind French-based Accor’s stake in South African-founded Mantis Group and Minor Hotels’ stake in Elewana Collection across Kenya and Tanzania, he points out. “The larger brands want what regional operators spent decades building: local knowledge, community relationships and conservation credentials.”
Wayne Troughton, Founder and CEO of HTI Consulting, says large management companies “are always looking to buy smaller management companies” to gain a footprint and add brands as Marriott did with Protea Hotels.
Banyan is new to Africa and safari so buying an established operator like Newmark makes sense, says Troughton.
“Mantis and Newmark were home grown over an extensive period by entrepreneurs and, as with many entrepreneurial businesses, the end game is often to facilitate an exit whether it be a sale, joint venture, listing or management buy-out. Selling or generating a joint venture with a much larger entity provides extensive further growth prospects or a lucrative exit.”
The speed argument
Trevor Ward, Managing Director of W Hospitality Group, says chains signing hotels one owner at a time is “awfully slow” but buying or affiliating with existing platforms is “very much faster with instant cash flow”.
The W Hospitality Group’s 2026 pipeline report provides the reason. Chains have a record 675 hotels and 123 846 rooms signed across Africa yet only 31% of the hotels scheduled to open in 2025 actually did so.
Before the Newmark deal, Banyan’s whole African pipeline was four hotels and 198 rooms so buying looks like the quickest route into safari.
Signing to opening averages about four years and 20% of openings scheduled for this year and next haven’t started construction. Most chains have no money invested in these hotels so they can’t speed them up. “No pipeline, no growth”, according to the report, but a pipeline earns no fees until hotels open.
Conversions, which Ward puts at 30% to 40% of the major chains’ global net unit growth, are harder in Africa where fewer hotels meet brand standards. “I know, for example, that the LMR hotels in Kenya is undergoing needed upgrades to meet the brand standards that come with the Choice branding.”
What is driving it?
Ward cites the chains’ need for growth and “room to play in Africa” while many others devote their time and efforts on China and the US.
Desta says travellers still prioritise experiential, conservation-led travel: a segment that held up after the pandemic and has been helped by better air connectivity. Safari assets also tend to have more pricing power than typical urban hotels.
Troughton sees the SUJÁN deal as a new shift with structured international funds now entering safari. “Since the COVID pandemic, the safari sector has grown significantly in terms of performance and profitability. It is now attractive to international investors, providing them with scale and growth potential.”
Ward says the investor base is varied, including first-time hotel investors from other sectors, family offices, sovereign wealth funds and pension funds.
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