Top 10 African countries with the biggest investments in the hotel business in 2025

The growth of hotel chains in Africa signifies economic potential, investor confidence, and tourism growth. A key indicator of this is the hotel chain development pipeline, which tracks new hotel projects. For African countries, a strong pipeline is commercially strategic and highly desirable.

Business Insider Africa presents the top 10 African countries with the biggest investments in the hotel business in 2025.
This list is courtesy of a report done by the W-Hospitality Group.
577 hotels and 104,444 rooms exist in Africa’s pipeline for the hotel network.

In the recent 2025 Hotel Chain Development Pipelines in Africa report by W Hospitality Group, this subject was extensively discussed, showing that the African hotel chain development pipeline now includes 577 hotels and 104,444 rooms, representing a 13.3% growth over the previous year.

A hotel chain development pipeline refers to the total number of hotels being planned, constructed, or prepared for opening by a hotel brand or group.

Hotel brands have inked partnerships in 42 African nations, with West Africa leading with 13 (out of 16), followed by the Southern & Indian Ocean sub-region with 12 countries in the pipeline. This year, it added the Comoros and Somalia.

In the current iteration of the report, Egypt continues to dominate the African pipeline, accounting for 32.5% of total rooms this year, up from 28% last year, and four times the amount of rooms in second-place Morocco.

Nigeria, which was second last time, replaced Morocco in third position, with only five agreements made in the former last year and 13 in the latter.

The report goes ahead to reveal that most African nations have witnessed stable year-on-year growth, with Ethiopia and Tanzania returning to growth following a drop in numbers last year, thanks in part to six new openings totaling over 700 rooms.

Additionally, Tanzania has shown tremendous percentage growth in the pipeline, with 18 agreements in the previous two years, seven of which were in Zanzibar.

An equivalent amount was signed in national parks such as the Serengeti and Ngorongoro, but with far fewer average rooms – 23 per lodge against 151 in each Zanzibar resort.

Lake Nakuru National Park with thousands of flamingos [Serengeti]

Despite the huge number of opportunities in 2024, Morocco’s pipeline continues to increase, particularly in Casablanca, Marrakech, Rabat, and Tangier.

With that said, here are the largest hotel investments currently, as per the Hotel Chain Development Pipelines in Africa report.