Darren,

The thing that gets to me, if you could not guess is the current government see us as an easy target for tax (IPT, VAT, DUTY, APD etc) but ignore the industry for any thing else, be it funding for tourist boards or protection for customers, plus a wide range of other things. They happy to turn up for the free dinners and party’s we invite them to, make noises of “oh yes what a good idea” leave and do nothing about it. They even stop things when they are supported by majority of MP’s (early day motions, green papers etc.)

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This was definitely a badly needed blog that a lot of people should use. There are few places where one can share openly about the uncommon experiences and upsets. Instead most reviewers delete your comments unless their favoable to the establishment.

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Let me say up front that I work in the travel industry but I need to rant too. Like Nick I’m really angry about government plans to increase Air Passenger Duty (APD). It was nodded through in the recent budget and I really don’t think travellers realise quite what is going to hit them.

If anyone is going to travel on, or after 1 November 2009 (regardless of when they booked their holiday) they are going to be faced with higher taxes to get on an airplane in the UK (whether travelling around the UK or flying internationally)

The new taxes are going to be introduced in stages so there’s an increase in November 2009 and then other whammy increases in future years.

What’s even more scary is the fact that the government has applied a rather arbitrary band about the tax depending on where people travel to –they’ve decided the location of a capital city in a given country should be used to decide which tax band should be applied. Now this is bonkers. It means that from November, travellers will pay more tax to fly to the Caribbean than they do to fly to Hawaii.

This is unfair for travellers (particularly anyone with relatives in the Caribbean who might want to fly back regularly) but it’s also unfair for countries that need tourism to survive. I’ve got a personal axe to grind here because I work in PR and one of my clients is the Caribbean Tourism Organisation, but I’m really horrified that the British government will be penalising so many travellers and so many countries that really depend on tourism.

HM Revenue & Customs claims that “Distances are based on the distance between London and the capital city of the destination country/territory” . So the APD tax will be based on the following bands
· Band A: 0 – 2,000 miles from London
· Band B: 2,001- 4,000 miles from London
· Band C: 4,001 – 6,000 miles from London
· Band D: over 6,000 miles from London

Ludicrously this means the USA is in Band B, but the Caribbean is band C.

As I understand it , this means passengers flying to the USA will pay £45 in lowest class of travel this year (reduced rate; raising to £60 in 2011) and £90 in other than lowest class of travel (standard rate; raising to £120 in 2011)

But people flying to the Caribbean pay £50 in lowest class of travel (reduced rate; raising to £75 in 2011) and £100 in other than lowest class of travel (standard rate; raising to £150 in 2011).

If there is anyone out there equally angry about the politics of extra travel taxes? Please rant too.

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