Caribbean tourism leaders have torn into the UK government for its policy on air passenger duty, which they claim is crippling travel to the islands.
Their comments came as a poll of travel agents carried out by TravelMole revealed that travellers are altering their plans to avoid or reduce the amount of air passenger tax they pay.
Almost two-thirds of agents who responded to the week-long poll on TravelMole.com said their customers were flying less or choosing to fly to cheaper destinations because of APD.
Speaking at the annual Caribbean Tourism Summit conference in Jamaica, chairman of the Caribbean Tourism Organisation Ricky Skerritt said no other tax was having the same negative impact.
David Scowsill, president and CEO of the World Travel and Tourism Council said: "We now have empirical economic research that this tax costs the UK 91,000 jobs and could add £4.2bn to the economy if it were withdrawn from its astronomical levels."
The Caribbean claims it is one of the destinations hardest hit by the tax because of the way it is structured passengers pay more to fly to the islands than they do to travel to Hawaii, which is further from the UK.
Scowsill said he had discussed with Willie Walsh, chief executive of British Airways’ parent IAG, how the "mood and strategy for an anti-APD campaign will and must change as the Chancellor George Osborne is not listening to rational argument".
Secretary general of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation also hit out at the tax. "APD has continued to batter any improvement in tourism figures," he said. "It is a cancer that is spreading cross embattled European economies and unless we fight it now it will become the norm for all governments and a barrier to travel."
Skerritt added: ‘No other tax is having the same negative impact as APD and the UK government despite numerous research papers and briefings are simply not listening. We now, in collaboration with other organisations will have to get much more serious on how we address this issue."
Wednesday June 20th 2012
