A shadow over our tourism

Written by Tourist Report
Wednesday, 03 December 2008
Amid the raft of emergency measures taken by Britain this week to deal with the international financial crisis was one to chill the blood of the tourism industry, The Dominion Post writes. Gordon Brown’s government is increasing the air tax it levies on travellers departing from Britain and extending the tax in a fashion that will impose additional penalties on passengers travelling to distant destinations such as New Zealand and Australia. From November next year, tourists, businesspeople and returning Kiwis travelling from Britain to New Zealand will be hit with a 55 (NZ$155) surcharge (up from 40 now). A year later the tax will rise to 85, increasing by $1000 the cost of a trip to New Zealand by a family of four. For the British Government, the move has some superficial attractions. The revenue will go a small way toward offsetting the 21 billion cost of the pump priming announced by Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling on Tuesday and it has the added benefit of appearing environmentally friendly. The further passengers travel, the more they are taxed. But for the New Zealand tourism industry, already contemplating a sharp decline in visitor numbers next year, and New Zealand generally, the surprise move is the equivalent of being crashtackled from the sideline. Almost 300,000 British tourists visited New Zealand in the past 12 months, generating revenue for airlines, hotels, restaurants, cafes and adventure-tourism operators. Already Air New Zealand has revealed plans to shed 200 jobs because of declining bookings. Anything that further dissuades holidaymakers from travelling to this part of the world can only worsen the impact. New Prime Minister John Key says he told Mr Brown when they met in London yesterday that he was concerned about the move, did not think it was fair and would “like to progress the issue further if we can”. Hopefully he was a more compelling advocate of New Zealand’s interests behind closed doors. The surtax is not only a crude revenue-gathering measure that takes no account of the fuel efficiency of different airlines, it is also a protectionist move in disguise of the sort that G20 and Apec leaders recently promised not to implement. The ties between this country and Britain go beyond those of normal civility. They have been forged in times of prosperity and hardship. As prime minister, Mr Key’s predecessor Helen Clark was able to ward off British proposals to limit New Zealanders’ ability to visit, live and work in Britain by invoking those ties and using her personal links with the leaders of the British Labour party. New Zealand needs Mr Key to be just as effective and forceful an advocate of its interests now. The financial crisis will not be resolved by individual countries pulling up the drawbridge and trying to go it alone. It will be resolved by engineering a return to normality as soon as possible. That is particularly important for a small remote nation such as New Zealand, which depends so heavily upon trade. Comments (1) Subscribe to this comment's feed WHY IS IT A SHADOW? written by Plato, December 03, 2008 This could turn out to be a plus for Samoa Tourism. Maybe in stead of going to England, they're come to Samoa. Write comment Name Email Title Comment

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