In February 2025, hospitality in the capital repriced upward while the Kivu lakeside lost its air link and its cash.

By Kanisa Magazine · February 2025

Eating out and sleeping away from home in Kinshasa cost 2.7 per cent more in the third week of February 2025 than in the last week of December, almost double the 1.5 per cent rise in the city’s overall price index. In the same weeks, travel to Goma, one of the country’s busiest lakeside destinations, stopped. Congo’s leisure and hospitality economy took two very different shocks in a single month, and the data show them side by side.

For hotel owners, restaurateurs and travel managers, February was the month the sector split into a capital that is repricing upwards and an eastern market that has lost its air link and its cash.

The capital charges more

Kinshasa’s restaurants and hotels rose 2.7 per cent in eight weeks while leisure and culture stood still.

The Kinshasa series in the Banque Centrale du Congo’s weekly digest shows the restaurants and hotels index moving from 4,262.7 in the last week of December to 4,376.6 in the third week of February. The transport index rose 2.9 per cent over the same period. The index for leisure and culture, which covers books, equipment and entertainment, rose 0.2 per cent, and communications did not move. The national index shows a similar pattern, with restaurants and hotels up 2.9 per cent against 1.5 per cent overall.

The exchange rate does not explain it. The indicative rate was CDF 2,855.70 to the dollar on 21 February, only 0.3 per cent weaker than the CDF 2,847.66 of 31 January. Prices in this segment rise with wages, rents, generator fuel and imported ingredients, and with the willingness of business travellers to pay. A stable franc simply means the rise shows up in francs and dollars alike.

Goma loses its air link

An airport that closed in a day also removed the cheapest way into the Kivu lakes.

The eastern picture is of an economy cut off. On 29 January, ch-aviation reported that Ethiopian Airlines and Jambojet had suspended their international flights to Goma and that domestic services had also halted after the M23 declared the airspace over the city closed. The city had been one of the few places in the region where a visitor could land on the shore of Lake Kivu within hours of leaving Nairobi or Addis Ababa. Since 27 January, the airport has been out of service.

Hotels, restaurants and guides there depend on arrivals more than almost anywhere in the country, so a closed runway is a closed season. The same applies to every supplier behind them, from lake boat operators to the cooks who buy from the market each morning.

When cash is the product

Mobile-money fees of 6 to 10 per cent turn every cafe sale into a discount.

A leisure business runs on small cash payments. On 13 February, Radio Okapi reported that Goma’s banks, microfinance institutions and savings cooperatives had been shut since the takeover, and that bank leaders had told M23 representatives the decision to reopen belonged to the monetary authorities in Kinshasa. Residents reported that mobile-money operators were charging 6 to 10 per cent, against the usual 1 per cent. Take a cafe whose margin is 30 per cent of sales: a 10 per cent fee on every payment removes a third of that margin. For a guesthouse paid in advance by phone, the fee comes out of the room rate.

Coffee itself added pressure. New York arabica, which a café’s customers never see, ended 2024 at 319.75 cents a pound, peaked at 438.90 on 13 February and closed at 389.90 on 21 February, according to the BCC digest. Whatever a café roasts or pours has cost more this year.

What operators should plan for

Price in the currency your costs run in, and test the mobile-money fee before the season.

Operators in the capital can defend margins by repricing where the market is already moving: menus and room rates are rising at about twice the overall index, and a stable franc leaves room to pass costs on. Operators with Kivu exposure face a different question, which is how to remain solvent through a closure of unknown length. The first step is to renegotiate with suppliers on payment terms while the banks are shut. The second is to learn what each payment channel costs before accepting a booking. Travel managers who still send staff to Goma should treat the airport closure as a duty-of-care issue, not a pricing one.