Jordan: Regional fight needed against APD

BARBADOS HAS TO join with the rest of the Caribbean in any battle against Britain in ensuring that its biggest tourism market does not remain subject to an air passenger duty (APD) or per plane taxation.This is the view of new president of the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Authority (BHTA) Colin Jordan who told his first press briefing yesterday at Hilton Barbados, “We have to deal with this from a Caribbean perspective. The BHTA can’t fight APD. . . The CTO [Caribbean Tourism Organisation]/CHTA [Caribbean Hotel Tourism Association] have been lobbying very hard, our embassies and consulates and high commissions. It needs to happen from a Caribbean/CARICOM perspective.”Jordan who assumed BHTA’s presidency at its annual general meeting last Wednesday said any increase in the APD, which the former British Labour Government had indicated would increase in November this year, but which the new coalition Government of Britain had talked about scrapping, would have a negative impact on local tourism.“The impact is going to be negative. The passenger duty already exists but it is going to increase in November and it is tough for us because our arrivals out of Britain are already down and Britain is our most important market,” he said.Jordan, who was a BHTA board member for eight years and vice president of finance in the last two, noted that the proposal of a per plane tax from Britain’s new Conservative/Liberal-Democrat Government may not be a better option, and without actual figures he could not reasonably assess its impact.“If the passenger tax on a flight to Barbados is $10 000 [and] the per plane tax is going to be $20 000 then we are going to be no better off because the airline is not going to absorb it. If it has to be passed on, it is not going to be called APD but the fare will go up by the same amount.  “We need to know how much this per plane tax is going to be first before we are able to say what impact it is going to have on the price of tickets for people who want to leave England and come to Barbados.” (SR)