Tourism leaders in the Caribbean are the latest in the travel industry to call on the British government to scrap Air Passenger Duty.
Air Passenger Duty, or APD, is a tax levied on all flights departing the UK, and has soared in recent years. The latest rises mean that a family of four will have to pay an extra £324 for a flight to the Caribbean.
The Caribbean tourist board has said that steep rises are damaging much-needed tourism to the area, which is a key source of income for many Caribbean people.
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“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,” said Ricky Skerritt, chairman of the Caribbean Tourism Organisation.
“We now, in collaboration with other organisations will have to get much more serious on how we address this issue,” he added.
Travel and tourism leaders from around the world have criticised the UK government for not listening to their concerns and damaging worldwide economic growth.
“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have empirical economic research that this tax costs the UK 91,000 jobs and could add £4.2bn to the economy if it were withdrawn from its astronomical levels,” said David Scowsill, CEO of the World Travel and Tourism Council.
The travel industry is now trying a different approach to try and get the government to listen to concerns, by appealing to passengers to write to their local MP.
An anti-APD pressure group, called A Fair Tax on Flying has set up a social media campaign on Facebook, and is asking people to have a template letter sent on their behalf by their MP.
More than 1,000 people joined the campaign and emailed their MP on its first day, and support is growing by the day.
