15 Zimbabwe’s most storied hotel now belongs to a single owner, and that shift could decide who controls the next wave of investment at one of Southern Africa’s busiest tourism gateways. African Sun, the country’s largest hotel operator, has bought out Meikles Limited’s remaining 50% stake in the Victoria Falls Hotel, ending a joint venture that began in 1998 and consolidating one of the continent’s most recognisable heritage properties under a single Zimbabwean roof. What Actually Happened According to the Zimbabwe Mail report of 2026, African Sun confirmed it had acquired Meikles’ half of the partnership that runs the hotel, closing out a joint venture the two companies operated on a 50:50 basis since 1998. A Billionaires Africa’s report of August 2026 has it that neither company disclosed the purchase price. In its own statement, Meikles acknowledged a reversal: the board had initially resolved to keep its interest as part of continuing operations, but subsequently accepted an acquisition offer from its joint venture partner. The hotel building sits on land owned separately by Emerged Railways Properties, a joint venture between the National Railways of Zimbabwe and Zambia Railways. Built in 1904, the “Grand Old Lady of the Falls” holds membership in The Leading Hotels of the World and remains the only property in the area with a private, ten-minute footpath leading straight to the Victoria Falls entrance, according to a recent report by All Africa. Why It Matters The numbers explain the urgency. Average room occupancy at the Victoria Falls Hotel held at 39% for the financial year ending February 2026, flat against the prior year, even as the wider destination grew. International arrivals into Zimbabwe rose 11% to 384,561 in the first quarter of 2026, and tourism receipts climbed 14% to $251 million over the same period. A hotel with flat occupancy inside a growing destination typically signals a product that needs reinvestment, not a market in decline, and full ownership removes the joint-venture friction that can slow capital decisions. Meikles, for its part, needed the exit. The group reported an after-tax loss of ZWG165.7 million for the six months to August 2025, against a ZWG1.5 million loss a year earlier, with its supermarket arm accounting for 98% of turnover and absorbing the brunt of power outages and rising costs. Selling the Victoria Falls stake completes Meikles’ exit from hospitality, following its 2019 sale of the Harare-based Meikles Hotel to Albwardy Investments for $20 million. Albwardy has kept buying in the same town, completing a $30 million purchase of the former Kingdom Hotel, now rebranded Makasa Sun, in May 2026. Who Carried It, and What Changes Now The deal caps decades of Meikle family stewardship: the group traces to Thomas Meikle’s 1894 department stores in Bulawayo and Gweru, built by his descendants into a conglomerate spanning retail, agriculture and hospitality, before a public boardroom dispute over the Victoria Falls stake pushed the family toward a full exit. African Sun inherits sole custodianship of a property that has outlasted colonial rule, Rhodesian independence and multiple currency collapses, and inherits the job of proving Zimbabwean ownership can modernise a 122-year-old hotel as capably as a joint venture once did. Operationally, African Sun already runs Elephant Hills Resort, Hwange Safari Lodge, Troutbeck Resort and three Holiday Inn properties, and has spent the past year trimming its portfolio by disposing of the Great Zimbabwe Hotel, Monomotapa Hotel and Caribbea Bay Resort. Full control of Victoria Falls Hotel now sits at the centre of that narrower portfolio, with Emerged Railways Properties expected to begin a major refurbishment programme this year. ALSO READ: The AU’s Continental Tourism Strategy 2030: What It Promises vs What’s Been Delivered Chad’s Zakouma National Park: Africa’s Quietest Elephant Recovery Story Sierra Leone and Liberia: The Next West African Coastlines Investors Are Watching The RCA Argument For African tourism strategy, the transaction reads as a test case: whether a single-owner structure genuinely accelerates reinvestment or simply changes who signs the cheques. For travellers building Zimbabwe into a Southern African circuit alongside Zambia, Botswana and South Africa, the near-term signal is stability; a single decision-maker generally moves faster than a divided one, but the medium-term signal is renovation, which can mean closures, price increases, or both. For destinations and hotel groups watching from Ghana to Kenya, the case worth tracking is simpler: does concentrated African ownership of a marquee heritage property outperform the joint-venture model it replaced, or does it merely relocate the same underinvestment under a new name? The next test comes when African Sun announces what it actually plans to do with the hotel, a refurbishment timeline, a brand partnership, or neither. Travel operators packaging Victoria Falls for 2027 itineraries should watch that announcement closely before locking in room allocations at the Grand Old Lady. Zimbabwe’s decision to consolidate its flagship tourism asset under domestic ownership, at a moment when Dubai-based Albwardy Investments keeps expanding its own footprint around Victoria Falls, will shape whether the country’s tourism recovery reinvests in Zimbabwean-controlled hospitality or increasingly flows through foreign balance sheets instead. Impact on Africa’s and Nigeria’s Tourism Sectors Ownership structure shapes reinvestment speed, and reinvestment speed shapes competitiveness. Victoria Falls Hotel’s flat 39% occupancy inside a growing destination is a signal other African heritage properties should heed: age and prestige do not protect a hotel from losing ground to newer boutique competition unless capital keeps arriving. Single-owner control removes one layer of decision-making friction, but it also concentrates risk; if African Sun under-invests, there is no longer a second partner to force the issue. For the continent’s wider tourism industry, the deal reinforces a trend already visible in Ghana’s diaspora tourism programme and Rwanda’s conservation-led hospitality model: African-owned operators are increasingly willing to take full control of marquee assets rather than share them with international partners. That shift can strengthen bargaining power with global distribution platforms, airlines and tour wholesalers, because a single owner negotiates from a clearer position than a joint venture split between two sets of priorities. For Nigeria specifically, the lesson lands at the level of state-owned and heritage properties still tied up in unresolved joint ventures or government concessions, including underused colonial-era hotels and rest houses across states such as Enugu, Cross River and Kaduna, all of which show strong hotel-density numbers but limited flagship heritage product. Zimbabwe’s willingness to let one operator take full accountability for the Grand Old Lady offers a template: consolidate ownership, then commit publicly to a refurbishment timeline, rather than let a heritage asset sit in joint-venture limbo while regional competitors modernise faster. Zimbabwe isn’t the only market where ownership battles over heritage hotels are reshaping who profits from Africa’s tourism recovery. Read RCA’s continuing coverage of African hospitality consolidation, foreign investment flows into Southern Africa, and the diaspora-driven tourism models redrawing the continent’s map, because the next ownership shake-up is already underway somewhere else. FAQs Who owns Victoria Falls Hotel now? African Sun, Zimbabwe’s largest hotel operator, owns the Victoria Falls Hotel outright after buying Meikles Limited’s remaining 50% stake in the joint venture that had run the property since 1998. How old is the Victoria Falls Hotel? The hotel, known as the Grand Old Lady of the Falls, was built in 1904, making it the oldest and most iconic resort in the Victoria Falls region. Why did Meikles sell its stake? Meikles needed to complete its exit from hospitality after sustained financial pressure in its core supermarket business and had already sold its Harare hotel to Albwardy Investments in 2019. Selling the Victoria Falls stake follows that same retreat toward retail, agriculture and consumer operations. Does this affect who owns the land the hotel sits on? No. The hotel building now operates under African Sun’s ownership, but the underlying land remains owned separately by Emerged Railways Properties, a joint venture between the National Railways of Zimbabwe and Zambia Railways. What should travellers expect from the hotel after the ownership change? No immediate changes to bookings or operations have been announced. Still, African Sun’s full control is expected to accelerate a refurbishment programme and potential new international brand partnerships, which could affect room availability and pricing over the next one to two years. African Sunheritage hotelsVictoria Falls HotelZimbabwe tourism 0 comment 0 FacebookTwitterPinterestLinkedinTelegramEmail Oluwafemi Kehinde Oluwafemi Kehinde is a business and technology correspondent and an integrated marketing communications enthusiast with close to a decade of experience in content and copywriting. He currently works as an SEO specialist and a content writer at Rex Clarke Adventures. Throughout his career, he has dabbled in various spheres, including stock market reportage and SaaS writing. He also works as a social media manager for several companies. He holds a bachelor's degree in mass communication and majored in public relations.