A?BRITISH?TRAVEL?group says the decision this week to raise the controversial Air Passenger Duty (APD) by nearly ten per cent, and the admission that it is primarily for general revenue purposes, represents reckless governance in the extreme and is made worse by the rejection of the travel industry’s well considered concerns.
“The immediate consequence will be lost jobs. The longer term fate of a substantially weakened UK travel and tourism industry, as well as its global competitiveness, is sealed,” said the Business Travel Coalition (BTC), an advocacy organization formed in 1996 to seek transparency in industry and government policies and practices.
Britain decided that it not only would retain the tax in the face of widespread travel industry criticism and lobbying for its amendment, but it would raise the APD on economy long-haul flights of more than 6 000 miles from £85 (US$132) to £92 (US$143) per person.
The BTC recalled that earlier this year it had organized about 70 corporate travel departments, travel management companies and tour operators from around the world and transmitted a letter to Britain’s Minister of Finance George Osborne and Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Moore urging a reduction in the APD, as it had already become a burden on the competitiveness of the Britain for meetings, incentive trips, conventions and tourism.
Meanwhile, Minister of Tourism Richard Sealy on Wedneday restated Barbados’ intention to continue lobbying against the existing APD band system.
In his address to launch Tourism Week at George Washington House Sealy said he was disappointed by the decision but intend to keep fighting it.
“I was encouraged, at the very least, that we would see something done about the bands. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, back in March, admitted that under the present system, the bands are inherently discriminatory, that was his declaration on the floor of the House of Commons back in March.
“And, he even cited the Caribbean to illustrate his point, referring to the fact . . . the APD is higher for all of the Caribbean than it is to Hawaii, which is a much longer flight . . . I would say I’m quite disappointed.”
He emphasised, however, that this result simply signaled the need to regroup and continue to petition for amendments to the existing band system.
“I believe that we should continue to plug away. The lobbying effort did get through, it did reach the very highest levels of the UK government and I don’t think that we should simply accept what has been announced . . . I think we need to continue to lobby at every level of the UK government [and] re-energize the work that has been done by the APD committee, of which High Commissioner Tony Arthur has been very instrumental,” Minister Sealy asserted. (AB/BGIS)