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First Choice to charge customers an ‘opt-out’ carbon offset levy
First Choice has decided to charge an opt-out £1 carbon offset levy to all of its mainstream customers rather than offering a voluntary scheme.
Managing director Dermot Blastland said take-up of voluntary schemes has been low, so it believed an opt-out scheme would be more effective.
From March 2007, a £1 charge will automatically be added per adult and 50p per child, which will be matched directly by the operator.
First Choice claims that if 100% of its customers agree to pay the levy, it will be able to completely offset the amount of carbon its aircraft emit.
“It might even end up being more,” said Blastland.
He said if the government decides to implement its own environment tax, First Choice will cancel its own scheme.
“Otherwise our customers will be double dipping,” he said.
He said if the government did bring in an environment tax, it should tax companies depending on the size of their carbon footprints, rather than being a blanket tax.
The operator is also finalising audits of its top 150 hotels, which accommodate 50% of its customers, against the new environmental and social best practices guidelines set up by the Federation of Tour Operators.
“With the rest of our hotels we will probably, to start with, get them to do self-assessment but any reports that we get back from the hotels that look a bit flakey we will go and check ourselves,” added Blastland.
By Bev Fearis
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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