Government taxes: Time for some serious ridicule says Lipman

Lipman with Paddington Bear talking about the benefits of Gross National Happiness

see: VIDEO

Ex WTTC President announces the Bernies and a Low Level group to promote them.

No doubt there will be a collective industry sigh of relief at the announcement in the UK Budget of “postponement of the increase in the UK’s rip off Airport Passenger Duty and a fix for its stupid Caribbean overcharging anomaly.” Writes Professor Geoffrey Lipman, former Assistant Secretary General UNWTO, President WTTC and Executive Director IATA.

YET the discriminatory, market leading anti-travel poll tax still remains in place, increases of 2600% yes 2600% have been made in the past 15 years since its introduction as a green tax and not one penny has gone to environment or industry causes.  As Giovanni Bisignani so tellingly noted – a year’s tax is 4 times the carbon footprint of UK aviation – so think of the gouging that represents over a decade and a half.

It occurred to me that there is something sadly amusing in the way our industry gets conned.
And then there is our somewhat predictable and rather mild mannered responses which only add to the farce. Falling over ourselves when a new leader mentions the importance of Travel and Tourism; producing serious but so often ignored reports and holding endless high level meetings and summits, to unsuccessfully oppose policies which are frankly cynical and short term. (But which, brutally realistically in this case, will continue to add billions of pounds to an austerity driven national balance sheet.)

For years I have been saying that we will never get any real reaction from policymakers until, like the farmers, we put cows on the steps of the Berlymont in Brussels – sheep might actually be more appropriate given the lines at security around the world that could be so easily fixed with more staff (it’s jobs stupid), more technology (it’s e-visas and more search machines stupid) and a little less shareholder profit and red tape bureaucracy.  

We transport billions of travellers, employ hundreds of millions of people and we never work to get them on our side on these issues partly because we are too nice and partly because we are too serious (or take ourselves too seriously – yes I know me too but I can say when I was President of WTTC 15 years ago, we did produce a still highly relevant tax policy paper in the form of a comic book – drafted co-incidentally by a young Lord Stern)

So with no authority to do so, other than being a long time in a sector I love and without any formal institutional link, I am pleased to announce the creation of the “BERNIES” a new set of anti-humbug, pro-ridicule Awards to be given for the most cynical and disingenuous Travelism (Travel and Tourism) Policies and Initiatives.

Named after one of the most cynical con man of all time – Bernie Madoff.

Periodically a “low level group” will meet to finalize the winners, based, of course, on social media engagement and I hope industry support.  Results will be correlated with major industry events.
Successful winners will get a blow up likeness of the great Bernie himself to display on their trophy shelf (or not as the case may be)

I am pleased to say that a number of equally irreverent friends including Thomas Steinmetz at e-turbo group and ICTP, Ghassan Aidi, President of the IH&RA, Peter de Jong of TTSI and Valere Tjolle at TravelMole’s Vision on Sustainable Tourism have agreed to join me in this initiative as “low level group” members to help spread the fun.

And we will extend this based on the simple criteria of non-democratic appointment, no salaries but a capacity to add to the game. We shall be bugging fellow cynics to get involved.

Finally suggestions for Awards in 2011 are most welcome….the only criteria are how cynical you think the strategy or policy is.  And the humbug isn’t restricted to the public sector…scour the media and let us know what you find. And pass this message to a friend or colleague.

Watch This Space!!!!!!!!!    www.bernies.info  www.bernies.travel

by Professor Geoffrey Lipman – award architect
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