The German Air Force: Tourist and air taxes

The Germans are creating a stink. From next year there will be an air tax applied to all tickets for outgoing flights from German airports; the levy will amount to eight euros for a flight to Mallorca. German airlines are none too impressed with the Merkel government's decision, Lufthansa saying that it will have to pass on the tax, the director general of Air Berlin in Spain and Portugal, the former head of the Mallorca Tourism Board (Fomento del Turismo), describing it as totally absurd, and Balearics president Antich also condemning the measure.

This is not exactly the first time that a major market for Mallorca has introduced such a tax. Who else? The UK, for one. The air passenger duty is set to rise to twelve pounds in November this year. Has it had a negative impact? Well, has it?

The Dutch are ones who would argue that this type of tax can be harmful. They abandoned theirs a year or so after it had been introduced. One drawback to the Dutch scheme was that passengers nipped over the border to Germany where there was no tax. Then. Or at least that's what they said. Add on the costs of getting to a German airport, and the saving was probably marginal at best. Nevertheless, the Dutch did apparently experience an overall loss on the deal.

Air taxes, tourist taxes, call them as you will, are easily justified - by governments and the environment lobby - as ways of saving the planet, a justification that has more than the hint of dissemblance, to say nothing of hypocrisy. Build another runway here or there, crank the number of flights up, haul in the tax cash. The environment is served better by improved aircraft efficiency, which is why the British government toys with the idea of a levy on older, less-efficient planes.

The taxes are a system of revenue generation, why not come clean? The airlines believe this to be so and that they are viewed as cash cows to be milked by bankrupt governments.

Into this argument, locally, comes a comparison being drawn between the German decision and the abandoned eco-tax. If you don't recall the fuss that caused ... the plan was to levy a tax of one euro per night on tourists. It was a crap scheme, not because there wasn't some sense behind it, but because it was highly discriminatory: the tax was to be gathered by hotels and other providers of accommodation. It took no account of other types of visitor.

The then socialist-led government, presided over by the current president, was quite clear as to the purpose of the tax; it was to be used, in effect, to clear up the mess years of tourism had created. Whether the money would ever have been used wisely, who can tell? And we were to never find out because the Partido Popular came into power a year after its introduction and scrapped it, the tourism minister of the time claiming that it had caused a reduction in tourism, something which the UK travel industry, for one, didn't necessarily agree with. His predecessor, who is now the head of the dreaded Costas authority, said in 2001 that the tax was a consequence of the Balearics "tiring of cheap, destructive tourism".

Things have changed since 2001, one change being the more rapid growth in low-cost airlines: from the UK and from Germany. As "The Bulletin" has asked, it is legitimate to question how President Antich squares his opposition to the German tax with the abandoned eco-tax. Does Mallorca now wish to carry on with "cheap and destructive tourism", contrary to the view nine years ago, keeping flights from Germany as cheap as possible?

Another thing that has changed of course is the increase in competition to Mallorca, hence, one supposes, Antich's opposition. But the tax would be universal in terms of destination; it wouldn't just be Mallorca. So where, really, is the problem? The British have lived with it, the Germans, generally more eco-conscious than the British anyway, would probably stomach it, and German treasury coffers would swell. Where a problem would lie, potentially, would be if the eco-tax were to be revisited. There is support for such a thing. For example, there is a group calling itself "Mallorca Goes Green". This advocates a ten euro tax on any visitor coming into the island via ports or the airport. A double-whammy tax might just make people think twice about flying to Mallorca. Or it might not. And even were it to, as I pointed out a couple of days ago, Mallorca can afford to lose tourists - cheap and destructive ones, if you like.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.