Things are getting whiffy in the Caribbean

Air Passenger Duty hung around the 2012 Caribbean State of the Industry Conference in St Kitts like a bad agricultural stench, writes TravelMole’s Graham McKenzie.  You don’t like it, it puts people off visiting and despite knowing where it comes from (11 Downing Street) there seems to be no way of getting rid of it.

Despite heavy investment in diplomacy, glad-handing, new proposals, pre electoral nods and winks from the party of the chancellor, the APD door has been kept shut in the face of some serious lobbying.

It was revealed by outgoing and hardworking chairman of the CTO Minister Ricky Skerritt of St Kitts that in a letter to the Caricom chairman (Prime Minister of Saint Lucia, Dr the Honourable Kenny D Anthony) Chancellor Osborne wrote "APD makes a vital contribution to the public finances and it is important that revenues from duty are maintained". So there you have it …this man is not for turning. However, you would not believe it on this side of the Atlantic where recent history is littered with Batmobile type u-turns on pasty’s, train contracts, visas and a whole bunch more.

The statistics would tend to back up the CTO view that the tax is extremely damaging. A tax that comes in as more for a trip to Antigua than it does to Honolulu some 9934Kilometeres further away . A tax that brings real hardship to the region’s main and in some islands case only industry. A tax that has led to a 11.5% drop in UK visits to the region in the first six months of the year although only a 1.8% drop from the cash strapped Eurozone (figures from CTO) and a rise from the rest of the world could lead one to the conclusion that APD definitely does hurt and will get up your nose if you’re a Caribbean hotelier.

So how do the Caribbean Tourism community get the tax removed or altered so its effect is not so pungent?

Well new Chair of the CTO, Commissioner of Tourism from the Us Virgin Islands, Beverly Nicholson-Doty, hinted at new tactics that would hopefully get the desired results.

This was backed up by Sec General Hugh Riley when he said: "It was hugely disappointing to witness the UK Government’s decision to increase APD this year and the proposed increases in 2013 are a further insult for the Caribbean and the travel industry as a whole.

"In view of this, we are determined to continue to lobby the UK Government on both the price of the tax and the unfair banding system it places the Caribbean in."

Well lobbying does not sound new to me and I fear will bring about the same result as the previous efforts. Popular press, media, TV has been the catalyst to changing the governments mind and will continue to be. Surely it is not beyond the wit of Travel Man and Woman to conceive of a campaign that literally flies in the face of the UK exchequer? A campaign that educates the UK travelling population on the facts relating to APD, the increase in the cost of long-haul travel everywhere not just to the Caribbean and the detrimental life changing effect it has having on people that are worse off than UK citizens?

Outgoing Chair Skerritt summed it up when he said ‘things have got to get nasty’. Air Freshener required?