Air Passenger Duty (APD) tax is a bone of contention for many across the UK who long to travel to far-flung destinations. Despite the latest changes having taken effect more than 9 months ago APD still manages to make the headlines; for example Malaysian based airline AirAsia X, which flies from the UK to Australia via Kuala Lumpur, has recently announced its move from Stansted to Gatwick. The main reason? APD. CEO of the airline Azran Osman-Rani stated that with the rise in APD taxes it just wasn’t economical to continue a budget flight service to Australia from Stansted. By moving the service over to Gatwick the airline hopes to attract customers from a bigger catchment area who are prepared to pay slightly more for their air fare.
This is an interesting strategy in response to previous speculations about the willingness of UK passengers to fly to the most expensive “Band D” destinations. Original comments suggested that families would no longer be able to afford holidays abroad; however, it seems much more likely that families and couples are still prepared to travel, with the increase in taxes being seen as a minor inconvenience as opposed to a major deterrent.
This theory is reinforced by information received from the over-50s insurance experts Staysure. Their research has shown that the sale of their travel insurance policies from the UK to Australia have remained consistent for the last several months of 2011 compared with 2010, despite APD tax being much lower in 2010. What’s more, this doesn’t take in to account customers who purchase an annual multi trip policy, allowing worldwide travellers to frequent Australia multiple times throughout the policy period.
This research coincides with the year-on-year tourism figures for Australia, which state that there was a 3.8% increase in visitors for the year ending June 2011 compared with June 2010. It seems that if people want to travel they will do, regardless of extra taxes and price hikes that are added on to their bill. Hopefully, however, this won’t be viewed as an easy revenue stream that is likely to increase in the future!
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
0 responses so far ↓
There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.