Tourism minister, JHTA poised to butt heads over tax increase
Published:Wednesday | February 16, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Janet Silvera, Senior Gleaner Writer
Western Bureau:
Another showdown is brewing between Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett and the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA) over his proposal to increase the tax collected by the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF).
The tourism minister, while criticising the United Kingdom openly for its Air Passenger Duty (APD), has proposed a US$10 tax for all tourists arriving by air. In the meantime, the Government has also not been able to collect the US$2 from cruise ship passengers since the fund started in 2005.
In a scathing release yesterday, the JHTA said the proposed tax was a disguise for the Government's failure to fulfil its responsibility to provide the US$35 million needed to market the destination.
"(That is) a mere 1.75 per cent of the US$2 billion the country earns each year from tourism," JHTA President Wayne Cummings said.
According to Cummings, the tourism minister had no qualms about demanding that the United Kingdom roll back its APD, "so it is ironic that while this call is being made, Jamaica is pursuing the same policy of overtaxation in this unjustifiable way".
He said that while the tourism minister states that the amounts will be used to shore up airline seat support to the island and to provide funding for the country's destination-marketing activities, the proposal was yet another case of adding unnecessary taxes on top of the already steep costs of doing business in Jamaica.
The JHTA head took the opportunity to again point to the importance of the TEF ensuring that every project it undertakes is cost-effective and is in the interests of the Tourism Master Plan for which it was designed.
"If this is done, we may be surprised at the availability of funds for marketing and other purposes," said Cummings.