Exorbitant fares discourage growth of Air Zimbabwe

Published: 25 June 2014

TOURISM and Hospitality Minister Engineer Walter Mzembi has castigated Air Zimbabwe for charging exorbitant fares which discourage growth of the airline as well as domestic tourism.

Addressing a Press conference at the on-going 9th edition of the Routes Africa Forum 2014 in the resort town of Victoria Falls on Monday, Eng Mzembi said there was no way the national airline would stimulate growth when it was charging exorbitant fares.

He cited the Harare - Victoria Falls route where Air Zimbabwe charges $500 for a return ticket. "The Harare-Victoria Falls route at $500 for a return trip is arguably one of the most expensive 45 minutes of travel in the world," he said.

"You cannot stimulate demand if you charge anybody $500 to just take them from Harare to Victoria Falls when they are displaced from London to Paris for just under 50 pounds."

Eng Mzembi said some airline fares discouraged travel and tourism growth.

"When visitors and travellers make a choice on where to travel to they are put off by some of our very exorbitant travel costs and we hope that in future interactions between travel and transport we interrogate our costs model that is offending the travelling public to this extent," he said.

Eng Mzembi said if Air Zimbabwe was charging competitive fares, droves of passengers would come on a daily bases to see the Victoria Falls.

"We could be having droves of passenger traffic on a daily basis coming to see Victoria Falls and coming back if we had an amenable pricing structure. It would definitely stimulate demand but a fare of $500 between Harare and Victoria Falls certainly will not stimulate demand. I hope we can look intimately at these cost structures and see how best we can stimulate air travel," said Eng Mzembi.

He said it was high time the country disabuses itself of the notion that airline travel was only for the rich because it is just a means to an end from point A to point B.

"We need to bring back school tourism and civil service travel incentives where civil servants are afforded one holiday a year to distress.

The demand has to be stimulated somehow and be driven by tourism," said Eng Mzembi.

Meanwhile, Eng Mzembi said they were going to challenge the proposed $10 per passenger tax aimed at raising a budget for the African Union.

"If you have run out of creativity do you tax customers? We are lobbying the AU to have that tax scrapped because it's tantamount to introducing travel sanctions in the market through taxing. You don't open up by having taxation," he said.
- chronicle

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