Jamaica’s Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett says that as the region continues to lobby for changes to the controversial UK Airline Passenger Duty (APD), the next push is to have the Caribbean designated a “community of interest” and placed in the same band as the United States.

He said that the lobby against the APD now has the support of the World Tourism and Travel Council (WTTC) and the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO).

“Things have changed dramatically over the last few weeks and months. We have not only had more (British) Members of Parliament (MPs) joining in, but all the relevant ministers are fully seized of this situation and are looking at how a way can be found for the Caribbean,” he said.

“The WTTC has come out in support, and the UNWTO, at a meeting of 64 ministers of tourism at the World Travel Market, came solidly on board in support of amending, adjusting or otherwise changing the APD.”

A release from the UNWTO quoted Secretary General ad interim Taleb Rifai as saying that the APD was coming at the wrong time and sending the wrong signal.

“This is a discriminatory tax, not an environmental tax, but a tax on development, which fails to understand the importance of tourism to developing countries but also to the UK itself. This decision comes at the wrong time and sends the wrong signal, especially from a country that wants to contribute to global development,” Rifai said.

Bartlett and some of his Caribbean colleagues last week made a forceful case for revision of the APD to British MPs at a meeting at the House of Commons, Westminster. The meeting, hosted by Liberal Democrat MP Sara Teather explored avenues to put the issue before influential committees of parliament for review before the start of the next financial year. But the message was clear that the APD would not be scrapped and the Caribbean would have to put measures in place to cope with it.

The APD is an environmental tax imposed by the British Government, which places countries in charging bands based on the distance of their capital cities from London. This means that flying from London to Los Angeles or Hawaii in the US is calculated as being the same as to Washington DC (Band B), while destinations in the Caribbean are charged at a higher rate of tax (in Band C).

As a result of the revisions made to the APD, economy class passengers flying to the Caribbean face a tax of £50 (US$73) per ticket, with the amount increasing to £75 (US$110) next year. The proposed tax for premium economy, business, and first class tickets, will be double.