Meliá Hotels International has picked up an additional hotel in Tanzania, within the Ngorongoro crater special conservation area.

The chain will now carefully renovate Ngorongoro Lodge to join the Meliá Collection while ensuring respect for the natural environment and local communities.

Adaptation overhaul

The hotel has been a fixture in the nature reserve for some time, but will reopen in 2023 after a major overhaul to adapt it to the needs of modern travellers, but without damaging the personality and authenticity of the hotel and its total integration with its natural environment, one of the characteristics of Meliá Collection hotels.

After the renovation, the wildlife lodge will provide 52 rooms with views of the crater (24 of them suites), and will also offer two restaurants, a small barbecue restaurant, a pool and a spa. 

Luxury and sustainability

Together with the hotel owner, Albwardy Investments, with which Meliá operates other hotels in several destinations around the world, the company has designed a renovation project that pays special attention to protecting the natural environment, including the indigenous flora and fauna, waste management and energy efficiency.

The hotel will generate a large part of its energy through solar panels and will minimise electricity needs through the use of the traditional local fans that are more efficient than air-conditioning. It will also produce its own water for human consumption through a bottling plant that will process local water and avoid the use of plastics and transportation.

Local integration

From the social point of view, the hotel will aim to integrate and promote Masai heritage and culture from within the lodge, using indigenous decorations in the hotel made by local craftsmen and companies, with products which can also be sold to customers to generate an extra benefit for the community.

There are also plans to form partnerships with philanthropic projects which support local women entrepreneurs and the most disadvantaged.

African ambitions

This fourth hotel in Tanzania allows Meliá to extend its portfolio of hotels in African nature reserves, along with the Gran Meliá Arusha, the Meliá Zanzibar and the Meliá Serengeti Lodge.

The Meliá Collection is a group of exclusive hotels whose personality and strong local roots are intended as their key value propositions. The addition of this new hotel means the Meliá Collection now has nine hotels in seven countries.

Elsewhere in Africa, Meliá has several projects in the pipeline in the Cape Verde islands, including Meliá White Sands Hotel & Spa, a 114-key development on Boa Vista delivering in Q3 2023; the 314-room Meliá Salamansa imminently opening in Q1 2023 on São Vicente; and Meliá Lusofonia, adding 150 rooms on Santiago island in Q3 2024.

Related Articles