Minister Urges Budget Rethink for Jamaica Flights
The current tourism minister of Jamaica, Edmund Bartlett, made a last minute appeal to the UK government today to try and preserve cheap flights to the Caribbean.
With the British Budget due to be announced tomorrow, Mr Bartlett appealed to Chancellor George Osborne to either reduce or restructure Air Passenger Duty (APD) so that it was less punitive to fliers taking Jamaica holidays or taking cheap flights to anywhere else in the region. Current speculation in Westminster and in the UK press is that Mr Osborne is set to announce an APD freeze in the Budget, but operators and politicians involved with promoting Caribbean holidays still believe that the tax is fundamentally unfair and excessive.
Speaking in the UK before leaving for a tour of Europe, Mr Bartlett said: "In the knowledge that this week is a very important Budget for the UK and its government, I would ask that they do not lose site of the APD problem that Caribbean destinations such as Jamaica are currently experiencing."
Following many months of lobbying, the minister message restated his "simple" message – that the economy of the Caribbean is highly tourism-based, "with one in seven workers directly employed in the sector and one in five indirectly, all equating to a figure of $39 billion accounting for a third of foreign exchange earnings". He insisted: "These statistics cannot be ignored, particularly when we are just bringing about a level of stability to this sector on the back of a very tough recession."
Mr Barlett urged the Chancellor to take a "sensible approach" to APD bands to ensure that cheap flights to the Caribbean did not suffer an unfair disadvantage compared to USA flights.
Cheap Flights News posted by 
on 22 March 2011
Jamaica flights, cheap flights, cheap flights to the Caribbean, Caribbean holidays, USA flights
http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/Articles/2011/03/22/36574/jamaica-makes-11th-hour-apd-plea.html
False
True
