Caribbean Ministers Hope to Halt Air Passenger Duty Increase
Six tourism ministers from the Caribbean islands are to meet the British government next week to discuss and hopefully alter plans to increase Air Passenger Duty (APD).
The Caribbean ministers are concerned that the increased charge will reduce the amount of cheap flights to the Caribbean and hamper the growth of their holidays industry. They will meet ministers from the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government along with bosses from several major airlines.
The dignitaries hope that they can persuade the UK government to reform the planned tax increases. This is the first time that Caribbean ministers have met the coalition government since the General Election and they are hoping to see more progress on the subject of fair APD charges than was possible under the prior administration.
One of the UK's leading providers of cheap flights to the Caribbean is British Airways, and chief executive Willie Walsh recently spoke out against the impact of increased APD, warning the Government that it should not adopt tax policies which harm the travel sector and the economies of tourism-dependent countries.
Mr Walsh is due to address a Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) conference in Barbados on the future of intercontinental flights.
The delegation will include Antigua and Barbuda's tourism minister John Maginley, Jamaica's Edmund Bartlett, Barbados tourism minister Richard Sealy, Grenada's Glynis Roberts, Richard Skerritt from St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia's Allen Chastanet and CTO secretary general Hugh Riley. A CTO spokeswoman told TTG Live that the delegation wanted to make sure that islanders' interests were represented and that due consideration was given to whether APD should continue to be per passenger or per plane.
General Travel News posted by Tom Murray on 02 September 2010
cheap flights, cheap flights to the Caribbean, Caribbean holidays
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