The controversial tax is due to be debated in Parliament on Tuesday (7 July) and a letter-writing lobbying campaign is being coordinated by the Caribbean Tourism Organisation.
Carol Hay, the CTO’s director of marketing in the UK/Europe, said travel agents who specialise in the Caribbean are furious about proposed changes to APD.
‘Everyone accepts we need to have taxes, but we feel this tax is simply unfair to one region of the world,’ she said.
‘It discriminates against anyone who wants to visit the region and to anyone who has business or family connections.
‘We only have a tiny window of time to try to get our voice heard, so we’re urging anyone who thinks they will be affected by this, or knows of people who will be affected to get involved and email their MP to protest.’
From November, APD will be based on a four-tier banding system, based on the distance between London and the destination country’s capital city.
It means flights to Hawaii or California will be less heavily taxed than flights to the Caribbean, which will see tax rise by as much as 94% by November 2010.
Under the new scheme, a family of four travelling to the region in premium classes will be required to pay up to £600 in tax alone.
Sarah Teather, MP for Brent East, tabled an early day motion in Parliament yesterday (30 June) which highlighted the inconsistency in the way the tax is levied.
She also pointed out it also ‘fails to effectively curb carbon emissions’ and argued that that replacing APD with a per plane tax would be fairer.
To join the CTO campaign click
here.
See also:
BAR UK joins anti-APD chorus (29/06/2009)
APD hike threatens jobs and economy (25/06/2009)
APD reform ‘will not happen’ (12/05/2009)
Operators warn APD will hurt Caribbean tourism (23/04/2009)