Zimbabwe: Hotels defy govt as crisis escalates

The move, which infuriated authorities, came against the backdrop of intensifying inflationary pressure in the recent weeks that has exacerbated the meltdown in the crisis-sagged economy, now in its ninth year of a recession.

The Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) chief executive officer, Karikoga Kaseke, said hotels had raised their prices significantly without authority from his group and the National Incomes and Pricing Commission (NIPC).

He said the new prices had been put in place without consultations with the ZTA and the NIPC, and when the ZTA tried to intervene, operators threatened to close operations.

This, he said, would have been embarrassing to the government, which was hosting a special guest, Thabo Mbeki, who stayed at a local hotel as he brokered a political deal between ZANU PF and the opposition MDC.

“We could have arrested them as we did during the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair but we realised they would go ahead with their threats and close the hotels,” Kaseke said, indicating they had balked from taking stern action against the hoteliers “out of respect for the President's guest.”

“They always consult us with new prices but on this occasion they did not. The big hotels agreed on a price on 9 September 2008 and by 2pm all the hotels had increased their prices,” Kaseke said.

Accommodation for hotels in the capital went up from as little as Z$40,000 pegged by the NIPC in consultation with the ZTA to around Z$3 million per bed. A hotel executive said this reflected the level of inflation in the country's battered economy. He said their operations were classified as leisure and should therefore not fall within the ambit of the NIPC's price controls.

“At times its getting cheaper to have meals at a hotel than prepare the meals from home. That's obviously not sustainable from a business point of view,” the hotelier said.

It was not immediately possible to get comments from Chipo Mtasa, the president of the Zimbabwe Council of Tourism, as well as from Shini Munyeza, chairman of the ZTA. Both Mtasa and Munyeza are CEOs of the country's top listed hotel and leisure group, the Rainbow Tourism Group and African Sun respectively.