THE BUSINESS Travel Coalition (BTC) is lobbying TMCs and corporate travel managers to help fight further increases in the UK’s Air Passenger Duty (APD) ahead of March 23, when the 2011 budget will be presented.
In a letter circulating online, signatories are urging the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for Scotland to “reduce this burden on the competitiveness of the UK for meetings, incentive trips, conventions and tourism”.
Titled “Our friends in the UK travel industry urgently need our help…”, the email states that the APD has risen by 325 per cent over six years and “the UK is already losing our business to European destinations that have no such duty or whose duty is a fraction of the UK’s” .
BTC chairman Kevin Mitchell said the counterproductive tax could add up to US$275 for UK-exiting passengers.
Organisations who wish to add their names to the letter can do so by March 18 at http://svy.mk/g87hpi.
