Web design in Zanzibar for hotels and villas

It’s the end of the month, and you are checking July’s bookings. Many came through booking sites, and you paid a commission on each one. Then a WhatsApp arrives from a guest in Italy: “Is the room in the third photo the one with the sea view?” Your website has the photo, but no room name under it.

Small questions like that show what guests need from a hotel website in Zanzibar. This article covers what they check, how to show your rooms and the beach honestly, seasons, languages, direct bookings and what to prepare. It is for boutique hotels, villas, resorts, restaurants, dive and tour companies, schools and businesses on the island.

What do guests check before they book a stay in Zanzibar?

Before they send their dates, guests want answers to these:

• which room has which view, and which room is in each photo
• what the beach in front of you is like, at high tide and at low tide
• the meal plan: room only, bed and breakfast, half board or all inclusive
• whether children are welcome, or the hotel is for adults only
• how long the transfer takes from the airport or from Stone Town
• how to pay, how much the deposit is, and the cancellation terms
• a WhatsApp button for a quick question

Put each answer on the page where the guest needs it. The meal plan goes on the room page, and the transfer time goes on the page about getting here.

A dive or tour company has its own list: each trip, the times, the pickup points, what is included, the price per person and which dives need a certificate. Give each trip its own section or page, with real photos from that trip.

How do you show your rooms and the beach honestly?

A guest who finds something different on arrival may write about it in a review, for example a garden view that the website called a sea view. So show the place as it is.

• Give each room type a name, and put that name under every photo of it.
• Take the view photo from inside the room, from the bed or the balcony.
• If the sea goes out far at low tide in front of you, show the beach at both tides and say when guests can swim.
• If the beach is a walk away, say how far, and show the path.
• Show the rooms in daylight, with no heavy filters.
• Replace the photos after a renovation, so the website matches the room.

Write the room copy the same way. “Sea view” should mean the guest sees the sea from the bed. If they see it from the balcony, say “sea view from the balcony”.

Busy months and quiet months

Zanzibar had 917,167 international arrivals in 2025, up from 736,755 in 2024. December 2025 alone brought 100,729 visitors, 38.3% more than November. Those figures come from the Office of the Chief Government Statistician and the Zanzibar Commission for Tourism, as reported by The Citizen on 18 January 2026.

Guests do not arrive evenly through the year, so your website has to change with the seasons:

• Update your rates when the season changes, with the dates each rate covers.
• If you close for part of the long rains, put the dates on the home page and in the enquiry form.
• Show what guests can do on a rainy day, such as a spa treatment or a cooking class, if you offer them.
• Keep your quiet-month offers on one page, so you can share a single link on WhatsApp and social media.

These changes are small, but they have to be made on time. Website Care, my monthly care plan, covers about 30 minutes of small changes such as prices, opening hours and photos. What does website maintenance cover? explains the rest.

Which languages do your guests read?

In the 2025 International Visitors’ Exit Survey, Italy was the largest source of visitors to Zanzibar at 18.8%, then France at 10.6% and the United Kingdom at 7.7%. Its authors include the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, the Bank of Tanzania and the Zanzibar Commission for Tourism. I read it on 4 November 2026.

Your own guests may be different, so check last year’s bookings first. If many of them are Italian or French, start with the pages they decide on: the rooms, the rates and the booking terms. A restaurant with local customers as well as visitors may want its menu in Swahili and English.

My copywriting is in English. For a second language, work with a translator who speaks it as a first language, and say so in your brief, because each language adds pages to build and test.

Where do direct bookings fit next to travel sites?

In the same survey, 67.2% of visitors to Zanzibar came on a package tour in 2025, up from 61.8% in 2024. Visitors from nearby countries, mainly the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya and Uganda, preferred to arrange their own trips.

Travel sites and tour operators bring you guests, and they charge a commission or add a margin. I don’t promise more direct bookings. A good website gives the guests who want to book with you a simple way to do it, with your own photos and your own terms.

• Put a WhatsApp button on every room page, so a guest can ask about that room.
• Use an enquiry form that asks for the dates, the number of guests and the room.
• Keep the room names, photos and facts the same as on your travel site listings, so guests who compare them see the same hotel.
• Write your booking terms in plain words: the deposit, the balance, and what happens if a guest cancels.

My work with the British School of Zanzibar

In 2019 I was the Digital Marketing Officer at the British School of Zanzibar, an international nursery and primary school. Online engagement went up 30% that year.

I also led the school’s rebrand. I made the case for change to the leadership, chose the studio, Yöy Agency, ran a session with the directors and managed the review rounds. The school received a new logo, the slogan Transforming Through Education, a brand guide, and templates for its letterhead, business cards and email signature. The director’s words below are about that brand work, from before websites became my main work.

A school website has different readers from a hotel’s. Parents look for admissions, fees, term dates, the curriculum, the teachers and photos of real classrooms. A website of up to 20 pages gives each of those a page of its own.

My brand work for lodges and safari companies in the north is in Web design in Arusha.

Working online from Dar es Salaam

I’m based in Dar es Salaam and I work online, so there are no meetings at your hotel or in Stone Town. Your project runs on WhatsApp messages, voice notes and email, with Zoom or Google Meet when a video call helps. Walk through each room and write a few notes about it, and I turn them into the copy for that room.

The work goes through research, strategy, copywriting, art direction, design, build, testing and handover. You see the pages on a test link and send one list of changes before the website goes live.

A small hotel with a few room types may fit a website of up to 5 or 10 pages. A resort with a spa, restaurants and activities may need up to 20 pages, or a custom website designed from scratch. Every website is priced after a short brief, and I reply with the price within two business days. Services lists what each package includes, and Web design in Tanzania is about websites for businesses across the country.

What to send before your project starts

• your room types, with the view, the beds and how many guests each one sleeps
• your rates by season, with the meal plan for each
• your booking terms: the deposit, the cancellation rules and how guests can pay
• honest notes on the beach, the tide and the walk to the sand
• photos of every room type, the beach at both tides and your food
• links to your travel site listings, so the website uses the same room names
• the languages you want, and who will translate them
• the WhatsApp number your guests reach

Quick answers for hotels and businesses in Zanzibar