TTF bills new PMC increase “bad and unfair”.
Tourism & Transport Forum chief John Lee has this afternoon told the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee that a proposed 17% increase of the Passenger Movement Charge has “no logical reason” and will dampen demand for inbound travel to Australia.
Under planned legislation announced earlier this year, the PMC will rise $8 from $47 to $55 on 01 Jul.
Representing the tourism industry, Lee said Australia’s PMC is the highest in the developed world for short-haul economy flights, contradicting comments made by Federal Tourism Minister Martin Ferguson this week who said the increase was “nowhere near as high” as departure taxes in the UK and Europe.
The TTF head debated the PMC increase would “undoubtedly impact demand” on travel from New Zealand – Australia’s largest tourism marketing that represents 1 in 5 international visitors – with a family of four to be slugged $220 when leaving the country, and costing Kiwis an extra NZ$12.8 million next year alone.
Lee said that since the UK implemented a new higher Air Passenger Duty on 01 Apr 2012 the number of visitors from Australia have plummeted around 30%, while Ireland, Denmark and the Netherlands have removed departure taxes outright to stimulate travel demand.
He also argued that the recently Gillard goverment adopted seasonal workers program, aimed at benefiting the tourism industry, has had little or no impact to the trade so far.
Furthermore, Lee questioned the impact of a new airport police tax that will generate $120 million for the government over the next three years, and the effect of the carbon tax on domestic and international flights.
“Increasing the PMC, higher airport policing charges and the carbon tax will all reduce Australia’s competitiveness as an international destination and accelerate the fall we are already seeing in international visitiation to regional areas,” Lee said.
“This is a bad and unfair tax,” he added, saying the amendment was bad for tourism, the visitor economy and Australia.
See Tuesday’s issue of Travel Daily for further details,