What you have done here through sound analysis is rubbish the theories that onerous taxes dissuade c

Last time I flew from Port of Spain to London it proved to be quite a networking opportunity. As I trudged down the plane through the mysterious world of First Class seats so large that an entire family might feel comfortable I bumped into an Honourable Cabinet Minister and some of his colleagues from a state-owned dicount coupons for car rentals enterprise, all pretty jolly at the prospect of luxury travel. Further dicount coupons for car rentals down the fuselage in commodious Club World I saw another Minister. I didn t have the heart to ask him why his colleague was closer to the front of the plane. I was merely passing through: British officials dicount coupons for car rentals travel Economy.
The realisation that ministers and officials of this country might not be found in the cheap seats has offered me an insight into the Air Passenger Duty (APD) controversy. APD charges are higher if you fly in a premium class ; perhaps ministers and officials are less familiar dicount coupons for car rentals with the costs in Economy dicount coupons for car rentals class. dicount coupons for car rentals And with the CARICOM summit taking place in Port of Spain on 3 July with various colourful world leaders dicount coupons for car rentals in attendance dicount coupons for car rentals , this is timely: I will not predict concrete outcomes of the summit, dicount coupons for car rentals but I will predict that the UK gets a pasting over the so-called airport tax . We will be told that it is discriminatory, targeting the tourism-dependent economies of the region; that it is particularly unfair as the APD charge to travel to the Caribbean is higher than that for North America dicount coupons for car rentals and that it has caused a reduction in tourism in this region.
So let s start with some facts: APD is charged on all flights departing the UK, whatever the destination. It is a revenue-raising measure that also aims to offset the negative environmental effects of long-haul air travel. Similar taxes exist in Germany and the Republic of Ireland . The longer the journey, the higher the APD charge. At £83 from London to the Caribbean region, that is £16 more than the rate to North America: this is because the distance from London to Washington DC is less than the distance from London to the Caribbean. However, dicount coupons for car rentals there are anomalies: the traveller going to Hawaii pays the lower, North American rate of £67, whilst a traveller flying London-Antigua pays £83, although flying to Hawaii is three thousand miles further. Sixteen quid is roughly TT$160: the cost of a salad in a Trinidad hotel  or filling your car with subsidised fuel. Anyway, the overall ticket price for Hawaii is  not cheaper than flying to the Caribbean. Assuming you book with the same parameters, it does not appear possible to find a flight from London to Hawaii that is cheaper than a flight to the Caribbean. In the end, passengers vote with their feet: in 2011, 1.1 million Britons visited the Caribbean and 37,000 went to Hawaii. In this context, Hawaii is a red herring (perhaps a red snapper).
Flight costs are a fraction of the full cost of a holiday. If you compare the overall cost with flight + hotel packages for the Eastern Caribbean against Florida and Phuket in Thailand, assuming the same class of hotel the Caribbean is roughly 250% more expensive than Thailand and about 50% more expensive than Florida. That s even though the cost of a flight to Thailand is usually more than a flight to the Caribbean. Put simply: it costs more to take a holiday in the Caribbean because the overall cost is higher, not because of APD . Then there is the experience that travellers to this country receive: the World Economic Forum surveyed how welcome are foreign visitors in your country?  Thailand got one of the highest scores in the world, dicount coupons for car rentals T T one of the lowest. There are questions about service standards, about fear of crime, about the difficulties of intra-island travel. Personally I have persuaded numerous people to visit this region because I love it here and I m doing my bit for intra-region tourism with trips to Tobago and up the islands. But it s not about individuals.
The briefest analysis shows that there is no statistically validated evidence for APD s impact. If APD were the reason for the challenges facing tourism in these islands it would be reasonable to expect all countries to be affected equally. They have not been: overall in 2012 the Caribbean posted one of the highest rates of tourism growth worldwide , but much of that growth dicount coupons for car rentals was outside CARICOM countries. In all of my discussions with officials and ministers I have suggested, to no avail, that we move the debate on to practical steps that might increase tourism. Undaunted, the UK has invested millions of pounds in programmes to support competitiveness and growth . I would welcome any discussion that involved credible arguments and forward-looking proposals.
Since posting this blog, two articles have appeared in the local and regional media that, in different ways, make similar points. The first, by eminent Caribbean diplomat Sir Ronald Sanders, is not an article justifying APD (far from it) but looks at the issue of taxes levied by the governments of this region on travellers (something dicount coupons for car rentals I did not have the space to cover in my own post). Sir Ronald makes an important point: Caribbean governments that are complaining about the APD could also lead the way in influencing the British government by eliminating or reducing dicount coupons for car rentals their own taxes .
Unrelatedly, an article in Caribbean News Now looks at tourism competitiveness in this region, following a UN-endorsed report on competitive strengths and weaknesses of the Caribbean destinations vs main rivals in the world: Indian Ocean, Mediterranean, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Arabian Emirates. The report found that intentions to recommend and repeat visits remain lower in the Caribbean region dicount coupons for car rentals (minus 15 points vs competition). The gap is driven by a number of competitive weaknesses related to less tangible yet crucial criteria, such as the feeling of security, the cleanliness dicount coupons for car rentals or the urbanization of development  Note that APD is not mentioned. As the report s author commented: The global competition between “sun and beach” destinations is all a matter of consistency in quality perceived during the whole stay that can generate positive or negative word-of-mouth .
Right on the money. I wrote in a column last year some comparisons between a vacation in the Caribbean Trinidad and Tobago in particular and New York where I traveled during the Yuletide season. I said it many years ago, it has been said by visitors and I ll say it again; we are pricing ourselves out of the market. The costs cannot be viewed in isolation but the quality of service is an integral part of a traveler s considerations. We deny it because it makes us uncomfortable but service in this country is abysmal. Our denial perpetuates the poor service because no one is inspired dicount coupons for car rentals to tackle the problem.
What you have done here through sound analysis is rubbish the theories that onerous taxes dissuade citizens from the U.K. from coming to Trinidad. We are also sweeping under the rug the fact that we like to kill people here. That could also have something to do with it. It is however politically expedient to create a bogeyman in a foreign jurisdiction than do the hard work of creating an environment that welcomes tourists and gives them valuable experience for a fair price.
Your well researched blog on the subject certainly proves dicount coupons for car rentals that APD is not destroying tourism in the Caribbean. There are other reasons cited correctly by Sir Ronald Sanders; the article in the Caribbean News; and Paolo Kernahan s response.
When we were exploring flights from Cape Town to London a travel agent said that UK taxes were so high that people were opting to go to Paris and take Eurotrain. That did not suit us, otherwise I might have acted on it as an expert opinion.
But when I started looking at prices online, such is the confusion of prices taxes, dicount coupons for car rentals options etc for air travel that I did not see the UK costs as being of a different order of magnitude that would impact my choice of destination – as you say, Arthur.
The added cost was lost among the smoke, for booking air tickets online is a nightmare for me: there is no standard fare, prices go up and down in a seemingly arbitrary manner, often within dicount coupons for car rentals minutes; we are encouraged to collect BA airmiles and yet when we try to use them there are no available flights that accept them. The one dependable feature dicount coupons for car rentals seems to be that the longer the route chosen the cheaper the air fare, and that is disgraceful in terms of burnt carbon.