Government must scrap £10 tourist tax: Ryanair
Published: 24 Jun 2009
Ryanair has called on Gordon Brown to scrap £10 APD tax and speed up the sale of Gatwick and Stansted airports to prevent a further collapse in UK tourism and related jobs next winter.
“If the UK traffic collapse continues for the full year the UK economy will lose over 10 million passengers, 10,000 airport jobs and over £2.5billion in tourism spend in 2009 alone, with the Government losing at least £350 million in VAT receipts,” stated the airline.
Ryanair urged the British Government to follow the lead of the Belgian, Dutch, Greek and Spanish Governments who have recently scrapped similar tourist taxes and/or airport charges in order to reverse falling passenger numbers and prevent further tourism and job losses.
The airline confirmed that it will freeze growth at its nine UK bases with immediate effect.
Ryanair highlighted that Brown’s £10 tourist tax, combined with the BAA Monopoly’s high airport charges have caused the loss of over 4.5 million passengers at the BAA UK airports in the first five months of the year.
“The Government’s £10 tourist tax is making the UK an uncompetitive destination and they must scrap this tax now to prevent a further collapse of UK passenger, tourism and job numbers. While the UK keeps taxing tourists Ryanair will switch its growth to other EU countries where low cost airports are growing and where Governments are welcoming tourists not taxing them,” Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary said.
Read more: APD
Comments
jollivee said on 3 Aug 09:
I agree that they should scrap the £10 APD tax because visitors are having a hard time paying for the travel. Some are having second thoughts on traveling abroad because of this. If they would not remove it, it would cause further loss of their passengers and further decline in tourism and rise in unemployment. Las Vegas City Tours
Jim said on 1 Jul 09:
Michael O'Leary is quite correct in saying that the £10 tourist tax should be scrapped. While RyanAir is not (yet) active in the United States, O'Leary's advice could also be applied to legislation currently working its way through the US Congress.
The politicians, with the encouragement of some travel and tourism lobbying groups, are pushing a bill called the Travel Promotion Act of 2009. This legislation would impose a $10 fee on foreign visitors to the US. Now, how smart is that? International visitors to the US have been declining since 9/11, and this year is on track to see another big drop in US travel and tourism.
There is an elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about. That is the perception and the reality that foreign visitors to the US are often treated rudely and arbitrarily entry to the US. Until something is done by the militarized immigration officers, foreign tourism and business trips to the US will continue to decline.
Some facts on declining overseas travel to the United States:
International travel to the U.S. declined by 10 percent in the first quarter of 2009 according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Despite a weak dollar that made the U.S. a travel bargain and 48 million more people around the world traveling "long haul," the United States welcomed 633,000 fewer overseas visitors in 2008 than in 2000.
In 2008 alone, overseas travel would have created 245,000 jobs.
If the U.S. kept pace over the last eight years with the average growth in global overseas travel, there would have been an additional 58 million visitors, $182 billion in new visitor spending and $27 billion in new tax receipts.
International travel to the U.S. declined by 10 percent in the first quarter of 2009 according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.
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