Despite Britain hosting the Olympics next summer, visitor numbers could actually fall, tour operators have said Photo: ALAMY
Despite the Prime Minister predicting last month that the Olympic Games and the Queen’s Jubilee could help bring in four million extra foreign tourists in 2012, a survey of tour operators, hoteliers and restaurateurs has found that many are anticipating a significant drop in visitors should APD be raised for the fourth time in five years.
An average fall in bookings of about five per cent was predicted by the businesses surveyed, while nearly a third said that bookings for next year were already down. Such a drop in visitors would result in an estimated £784 million in lost revenue and could threaten thousands of jobs.
"Simply hosting the Olympics and the Queen's Jubilee does not guarantee that foreign visitors to Britain will increase,” said a spokesman for Tourism Alliance, which represents Britain’s tourism industry. “The painful truth is that without major changes to underlying Government policy - such as addressing the exorbitant levels of APD - Britain's tourism sector will struggle to compete."
As well as making it more costly for Britons to head overseas, APD also discourages overseas holidaymakers – who pay the tax on their journey home – from visiting Britain. An announcement on the tax is due on November 29 and an increase of about ten per cent – double the current rate of inflation – is widely expected. Next year, Britain also enters the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme, which will increase further the cost of flying.
“2012 has the potential to be a crippling year for inbound tourism to the UK if the Government goes ahead with its double inflationary rise in APD,” said Mary Rance, chief executive of UKinbound, which represents Britain's inbound tourism businesses.
“These findings demonstrate that Britain’s tourism sector could lose hundreds of millions of pounds next year because of tourists avoiding exorbitant aviation tax rates.”
Aviation tax in Britain is the highest in the world, with a family of four currently paying between £48 and £96 in APD on a short-haul flight, and between £240 and £680 on a long-haul flight. It has increased by between 240 and 425 per cent since 2007, during which time annual visitors numbers to Britain have fallen from 35 million to 28 million.
Tom Jenkins, executive director of the European Tour Operators Association, said: “There is no doubt that people are being deterred from coming to Britain by the extraordinarily high cost of APD. There is now a major cash incentive to ignore Britain as a holiday destination. We are seeing London lose out as a gateway for Europe in favour of Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam.”
Last month, in a survey of 150 MPs, three quarters said that further rises in APD could deter thousands of British families from flying. The high rate of duty is also threatening the number of routes on offer to British travellers, with British Airways and Virgin Atlantic both recently cutting the frequency of their flights to the Caribbean. The number of domestic routes in Britain has also fallen by at least a fifth since 2007.
Despite the Prime Minister predicting last month that the Olympic Games and the Queen’s Jubilee could help bring in four million extra foreign tourists in 2012, a survey of tour operators, hoteliers and restaurateurs has found that many are anticipating a significant drop in visitors should APD be raised for the fourth time in five years.
An average fall in bookings of about five per cent was predicted by the businesses surveyed, while nearly a third said that bookings for next year were already down. Such a drop in visitors would result in an estimated £784 million in lost revenue and could threaten thousands of jobs.
"Simply hosting the Olympics and the Queen's Jubilee does not guarantee that foreign visitors to Britain will increase,” said a spokesman for Tourism Alliance, which represents Britain’s tourism industry. “The painful truth is that without major changes to underlying Government policy - such as addressing the exorbitant levels of APD - Britain's tourism sector will struggle to compete."
As well as making it more costly for Britons to head overseas, APD also discourages overseas holidaymakers – who pay the tax on their journey home – from visiting Britain. An announcement on the tax is due on November 29 and an increase of about ten per cent – double the current rate of inflation – is widely expected. Next year, Britain also enters the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme, which will increase further the cost of flying.
“2012 has the potential to be a crippling year for inbound tourism to the UK if the Government goes ahead with its double inflationary rise in APD,” said Mary Rance, chief executive of UKinbound, which represents Britain's inbound tourism businesses.
“These findings demonstrate that Britain’s tourism sector could lose hundreds of millions of pounds next year because of tourists avoiding exorbitant aviation tax rates.”
Aviation tax in Britain is the highest in the world, with a family of four currently paying between £48 and £96 in APD on a short-haul flight, and between £240 and £680 on a long-haul flight. It has increased by between 240 and 425 per cent since 2007, during which time annual visitors numbers to Britain have fallen from 35 million to 28 million.
Tom Jenkins, executive director of the European Tour Operators Association, said: “There is no doubt that people are being deterred from coming to Britain by the extraordinarily high cost of APD. There is now a major cash incentive to ignore Britain as a holiday destination. We are seeing London lose out as a gateway for Europe in favour of Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam.”
Last month, in a survey of 150 MPs, three quarters said that further rises in APD could deter thousands of British families from flying. The high rate of duty is also threatening the number of routes on offer to British travellers, with British Airways and Virgin Atlantic both recently cutting the frequency of their flights to the Caribbean. The number of domestic routes in Britain has also fallen by at least a fifth since 2007.
