Sandbank Villas
How Digital Content Drove 86% of Sales for Zanzibar's Most Awarded Villa Development
In emerging destinations like Tanzania, leading hospitality brands are actively expanding. Four Seasons is developing a 60-villa resort on Pongwe Beach, while Le Méridien and Minor Hotels have also committed to opening luxury resorts in the area, according to an article in Khaleej Times.
Sandbank Villas, a 36-unit luxury development on the northern tip of Zanzibar in Nungwi, entered one of the most underserved luxury markets in the Indian Ocean, with prices starting at $495,000 and a flagship Presidential Villa at $975,000—a price point that had never been tested on the island.
The project’s international partner, Proven Partners, needed a visual content system capable of converting cold digital traffic into qualified leads at scale across time zones, cultures, and buyer profiles spanning the UAE, South Africa, Europe, and the US.
According to Proven, PPC campaigns for Sandbank Villas generated 86% of the project’s total sales, with the entire campaign relying on marketing CGI and digital content produced before a single unit was completed.
The project is developed by Johari Developers, a Tanzanian family firm with over 35 years of experience and 100,000 sqm of construction in Dar es Salaam, and was brought to international markets.
We were engaged not simply to make the project look good, but to build the visual assets that the sales operation would run on.
The hard truth about off-plan marketing in emerging markets is that the product doesn’t exist yet, and neither does the buyer’s frame of reference. Zanzibar’s tourism numbers are surging: the island recorded 917,000 international arrivals in 2025, up 25% year-on-year. But it has no established luxury resale track record and, until recently, no residential product positioned at this price point.
Johari had proven it could sell. Its earlier Johari Beach Residences project moved all 23 units ahead of delivery to buyers from 14 countries, selling out in under four months.
But Sandbank Villas was a different scale: 36 villas across three tiers, alongside a fully integrated five-star resort under construction, and a buyer audience that needed to be assembled from scratch across the UAE, South Africa, the US, the UK, and Europe.
With no model to walk through during the initial sales push, every buyer’s first, and often only, encounter with the product was through our content.
Each piece of furniture within the interiors was custom-modelled by hand from designer references and brand catalogues, because the locally sourced elements defining the project’s aesthetic, woven straw lamps, carved dark timber, coral stone textures, simply do not exist as off-the-shelf digital assets.
A retargeting campaign drove a 28% increase in conversion rates for the earlier Johari Beach Residences project. By December 2024, Phase 1 of Sandbank Villas was fully reserved, and the project had earned two international accolades: Best Residential Development in Tanzania at the 2024 International Property Awards, and Best Luxury Villa Development in Zanzibar at the 2024 Luxury Lifestyle Awards.
At Sandbank Villas, the nature-integrated design language, coral stone, reef rock, perforated brick walls, was translated image by image into a visual system that mirrors the sensory experience of being inside the villas.
In a market where Anantara is investing $230 million in a 181-key resort within the same postcode, and Four Seasons is developing 60 villas on Pongwe Beach, a boutique family developer competing on content quality rather than brand legacy is the strategic play. And the marketing data suggests it is working.
Credentials
Location
Zanzibar, Tanzania
Client
Developer
Project lead
Petra Országh
Services
Exterior CGI
Interior CGI
Property Animation