Our economy continues to be challenged by external forces over which we have little or no control. No sooner have we taken care of the immediate consequences of one problem than another of different nature, but of similar potentially destructive impact, worms its malevolent way onto our path.
The tourism industry is critically vital to the resurgence of our economy. It can, in short, order dramatically improve our fortunes and help to stabilize and energize most of the drivers of our economic engines.
Sometimes, from the source of our good fortune can come unsettling news – like that there is another environmental travel tax coming out of Europe. Indeed, it is very bad news.
The distressing report was delivered by Barbados Hotel & Tourism Association president Colin Jordan who was clear that the new tax would take effect here, although he could not say when. It is estimated by the European Union that the tax would cost between $5 and $30 more per passenger.
This new imposition has been called a “double whammy” since Britain, which was long out of the blocks in imposing its own travel tax, has stated definitively that this new tax will be in addition to the its own air passenger duty (APD).
What will they think of next!
The British APD was tough enough in and of itself, since it seemed to discriminate against travel to these islands, given the curious way in which it was calculated. For these destinations are more heavily taxed under that scheme than others much farther away.
There may however be a few grains of comfort to emerge from the latest bad news. China, India, the United States and Russia are among more than 20 countries vigorously opposed to the new tax, and their positions are already known. And one wonders why this region’s views are not already on the table.
How is it that these larger nations are already running with their opposition, and this region, which literally survives on tourism, has not yet publicly stated to the world its vigorous opposition to this tax? What are we waiting for?
We must mount the strongest possible objection to this new imposition, even if we have others out front, so to speak, pushing back against these tax impositions. Virgin Airlines, for example, is obviously in our corner; but then its interests and ours are conjoined, since that airline brings the tourists whom we eagerly welcome to our shores, and from whose activities we earn our necessary foreign exchange.
Virgin continues to press the British chancellor on the APD. During the past week, it once again called for a review of that tax, which pulls in huge sums of money for the British Treasury, and pointed out that it had refused to pass on to passengers some retroactive increases of the APD, and had absorbed them.
While we applaud this gesture on the part of Virgin, we have a duty to fight our own battles and not to relent in that fight. We may depend heavily on tourism, but the benefits are not one-way.
The trade in tourism and travel between Europe and this region helps our economies, but it also helps those in Europe. Employment of pilots and other necessary pre-flight, in-flight and post-flight personnel, as well as purchases of fuel and other commodities from the base of operations help to build, improve and grow the European economies.
We are all in this together in an interdependent, international, economic matrix and the sooner this message is clearly understood, the clearer it should be that impositions of these taxes in a draconian manner harms everyone in the long run.
This region cannot afford any more economic body blows. We have had the APD, and the OECD attack on our financial service sectors, and now we face this environmental tax out of Europe.
We are not yet a political union in these parts, but clearly our regional economies are interdependent, and we must with one united voice defend and advocate for the protection of our interests. And time is of the essence!