Zanzibar's restored Caravan Sarai reopens as Stone Town's newest trading hub

Zanzibar's Caravan Sarai, a restored 19th-century building in the heart of Stone Town, has reopened at full occupancy as a commercial hub, giving a new home to traders displaced from the nearby Old Fort while that monument's own restoration continues, Tanzania's The Citizen newspaper reported in August 2026.

"The facility has already reached full occupancy, with businesses now operating from the premises," the paper said. Many of the new tenants, it reported, "were previously located within the Old Fort (Ngome Kongwe) and have relocated to Caravan Sarai to facilitate the ongoing restoration of one of Zanzibar's most treasured historical monuments."

Among them is Ahmed Abdallah, who moved his curio shop from the Old Fort. "In the beginning we were worried because we did not know what to expect," he told the Citizen. "Today, most of us are happy because our customers have found us here, business is improving and the new environment has given us renewed confidence."

A merchants' guesthouse, not a slave depot

Caravan Sarai's name evokes the caravans that once carried goods, ivory and enslaved people along 19th-century East African trade routes, but the building itself was not a slave-trade departure point. According to Khoja Wiki, a history project maintained by descendants of Zanzibar's Khoja Ismaili community, it stands on Malindi Street in Stone Town and was completed in 1882 by the merchant Ismail Ramjee as "charitable housing and not for commercial purpose" (a separate account on the Ismaili community blog Ismailimail dates its endowment to December 1892). In effect, it was a free guesthouse, or musafirkhana, for Khoja traders arriving by dhow from Kutch in western India. Khoja Wiki describes it as a two-storey building with 36 rooms around a central courtyard.

The building was later given to widows of Zanzibar's Ithnasheri Shia community, then opened rent-free to Stone Town residents, according to the same account, which described it before the current restoration as badly deteriorated inside and out.

Stone Town, the old quarter of Zanzibar City on the island of Unguja, was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000, recognised under criteria that include its centuries-long "interchange of values" between Africa, Arabia, India and Europe. The wider town was, in the 19th century, "especially renowned for the commerce of spices (mostly cloves) and slaves," according to Wikipedia's entry on the town; its Anglican cathedral was deliberately built on the site of Zanzibar's former slave market, with the altar placed where the market's whipping post once stood.

Old Fort restoration runs on

The Old Fort, or Ngome Kongwe, that the relocated traders left behind was built by the Portuguese in the 17th century and rebuilt by Oman's rulers in the 18th. It later served as a garrison and a prison, and as a railway terminal between 1905 and 1928; today it hosts the Zanzibar International Film Festival.

Its restoration, led by the Zanzibar-focused developer Infinity Developments, was announced in November 2024, when the company said it would add landscaped gardens, revamped museum displays, a tourist information centre and expanded food and retail stalls, while "building another area not far from the Old Fort to relocate all of the different local shopkeepers." Infinity said at the time that the renovation, already under way, would take about six months more; by August 2026, when the Citizen reported on Caravan Sarai, the Old Fort restoration was still described as ongoing.

Infinity's chairman and chief executive, Samuel Saba, said of the Caravan Sarai project: "Caravan Sarai is an important part of Zanzibar's history and cultural identity. We are proud to have completed its restoration and to see it once again serving the community. Beyond preserving a historic landmark, this project has also provided a new home for businesses affected by the ongoing restoration of the Old Fort, ensuring that commercial activity continues uninterrupted."

Infinity is also behind a larger, separate push: in February 2026 it signed a US$12 million (Sh30.9 billion) public-private partnership with the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar to restore Tenga Garden, Africa House and the historic Wakf building of Khoja Ismailia, the tourism and antiquities ministry's permanent secretary, Dr Aboud Suleiman Jumbe, said at the time.

Visiting Caravan Sarai

Caravan Sarai sits inside Stone Town's UNESCO-listed core, within walking distance of the Old Fort and the seafront. The Citizen described visitors "welcoming the improved facilities while enjoying the unique cultural and historical setting of Stone Town" — useful for travellers planning to combine a browse through its relocated curio stalls with the rest of a Stone Town walking tour. Neither Infinity Developments nor Zanzibar's tourism ministry has published set opening hours for the site.