Albwardy Investment

Albwardy Investment is a Dubai family group whose founder and chairman Forbes Middle East names as "Ali Saeed Juma Albwardy". Forbes places it 94th among the Top 100 Arab Family Businesses in a profile of 7 September 2022, with "a portfolio of more than 30 companies", more than 10,000 staff and operations "in over 20 countries across the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and South America". Devex lists its trades as "food retailing, food distribution, construction, engineering, hospitality and hotel ownership". Hotels are one line of a wider business. [1,2]

An Owner That Hires Operators

The company does not run a hotel brand of its own. In a Four Seasons release of 9 January 2024 it describes a portfolio across four continents, built from acquired, refurbished and newly built properties, mostly in partnership with international chains, and counts 1,300 rooms operating and 1,100 under development. The Four Seasons houses it lists are Buenos Aires, Johannesburg, Hoi An, Serengeti, and two in the Seychelles, on Mahé and Desroches Island. Gulf Business names it as owner of three Meliá-operated hotels, in Zanzibar, Tanzania and Argentina. In 2020 its subsidiary ASB Hospitality Zimbabwe bought the "312-bed five-star Meikles Hotel" in Harare for $20 million, according to Forbes. [1,3,4]

Desert Palm And The Polo Ground

Desert Palm in Dubai is the family's home ground. Near Far Magazine, in June 2026, writes "Founded in 1994 by Ali Albwardy" of the 160-acre estate, with polo fields, a riding school and stabling for more than 400 horses; Fact Magazine, in December 2020, credits him with founding the Dubai Polo Club in 1994. The hotel is operated by Meliá, which Gulf Business reports took over management from Minor Hotels' Per Aquum. The 2024 Four Seasons release lists "The Desert Palm Polo Estate & Residences" among Albwardy's lifestyle assets. [3,4,5,6]

Zanzibar And The Seychelles

The Seychelles came first. TTG reported on 15 July 2016 that Albwardy, already owner of the Four Seasons on Mahé, had brought Four Seasons in to manage Desroches, a 51-key resort on its own island in the Amirantes, to reopen in 2017 after renovation; Albwardy called it "a culmination of my own dreams". In January 2024 Four Seasons and Albwardy announced a resort at Pongwe on Zanzibar: 60 villas on 126 acres. The release says only that it "will soon introduce" the resort; no opening date is given. It also lists a property in Stone Town, a further Mahé project and one in Jumeirah, Dubai, as under construction. [3,7,8]

Editorial note — ⚑ The founding year is given as 1976 by Forbes and as "mid 70's" and 1970 on the same Devex page; neither is chosen here. ⚑ Desert Palm's room count differs: 39 rooms, suites and villas in Gulf Business, 38 rooms plus villas in Fact. ⚑ No source read here states the date Meliá took over; Fact already names "Meliá Desert Palm" in December 2020. ⚑ The Zanzibar, Stone Town, Mahé and Jumeirah projects are announced or under construction on the sources read, not open. ⚑ The register's earlier note dates the Zanzibar and Seychelles pipeline to 2025; the sources read here date it January 2024. ⚑ The register's reading: an owner without a brand of its own.