Caribbean organisations call for air passenger tax removal

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago, Guardian – Richard J Doumeng, president, Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA), and Beverly Nicholson-Doty, chairman, Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) Council of Ministers and Commissioners of Tourism, are supporting a recent study by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) which shows that the abolition of the UK’s Air Passenger Duty (APD) could bring a lasting boost to the UK economy, generating a net tax gain for the Treasury and creating almost 60,000 new jobs. The abolition of the tax would have an immediate positive impact on the Caribbean region with major beneficiaries being destinations that are heavily dependent on the UK market. “For the Caribbean the tax is extra-territorial in effect, and is damaging the region’s tourism economy. For this reason the region has argued that at the very least the discriminatory aspect of the tax, which favours the continental United States, should be addressed by re-banding the Caribbean to the same level as the continental US,” said Doumeng and Nicholson-Doty in a co-drafted joint statement. “CTO and CHTA would hope that the UK Chancellor studies carefully the PWC report and recognises that APD is damaging the UK travel and tourism industry and by extension the vulnerable economies of the Caribbean, the most tourism dependent region in the world.