Zanzibar Tops 917,000 Arrivals as Operators Warn Against Chasing Volume Over Yield
Zanzibar received 917,167 international visitors in 2025, an increase of 24.5 per cent on the previous year. The island is now within reach of one million arrivals. For Mohammed Hersi, Group Director of Operations at Pollmans Tours & Safaris and a member of the Essence of Africa advisory panel, that speed of growth is exactly why the destination needs to decide now what kind of market it wants to be.
His advice is to push yield rather than numbers. Hersi believes Zanzibar belongs in the medium to upper luxury segment rather than in mass tourism, on the simple grounds that there is only one Zanzibar and an island can absorb only so much. He does not think the island has reached overtourism yet. He defines that as too many visitors in one small place, infrastructure that breaks down, and residents who start to see guests as a problem rather than as visitors.
The risk, in his view, sits in the building boom. A 400-room resort means feeding, housing and supplying water to around 1,000 people every day, counting guests and staff. Where does the extra water come from? The electricity? The waste handling? Hersi argues that if those questions are answered badly, Zanzibar can cross into overtourism without ever planning to.
Zanzibar has stopped issuing new land leases on Pemba while it completes its planning frameworks, partly to avoid repeating the development pressure seen on Unguja. Hersi supports that decision completely. He describes Pemba as smaller and more delicate, and says it could be overrun. Development is possible, he argues, without losing the way people live and work there, because once that character is gone it does not come back. He points to Lamu in Kenya, where the old town has kept its traditions, including the use of donkeys for transport.
The cautionary example he returns to is the Maasai Mara. The reserve covers only about 1,500 square kilometres, and new properties are still being built. In July, August and September, he says, 20, 30 or 40 vehicles gather around a single pride of lions, and 50 can line the river waiting for a crossing. Waste is another pressure, with camps and lodges generating it and some sitting close to riverbanks.
Pricing has not fixed the crowding. The peak-season park fee for international visitors doubled from US$100 to US$200, yet 40 or 50 vehicles still surround a single leopard or cheetah, sometimes preventing the animal from hunting or eating. Hersi suggests going further in peak months, to US$300, US$350 or even US$400, while making other periods cheaper to pull demand across the calendar. Green season in the Mara, he notes, is quiet, lush and beautiful.
He also believes Kenya made a marketing error. Once the wildebeest migration was named one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World, the Mara became a three-month destination in the mind of the market. Yet the migration follows no schedule: a visitor can stay two weeks and see no crossing, or arrive for two hours and see three. Responsible destination management companies, he says, are now using other images and stories.
Responsibility, in his view, sits with government, the private sector and communities together, but policy must lead. That means zoning plans, clear rules on development density, how much land stays green, building heights and permitted locations, and then real enforcement.
The commercial argument should interest every seller of East Africa. Clients combine the Mara with Diani or Zanzibar, or combine Zanzibar with the Serengeti or Manyara. If either anchor loses its appeal, bookings weaken on both sides of the border. Agencies that start selling green-season safaris and higher-value island stays now will be better placed than those still selling only the three busy months.
