Travelogue- taxing the Seychelles

By Paul Brown
Copyright 1999 The Guardian
Reprinted with permission
Article date: February 6, 1999
 

A $100 (£65) environmental tax is being imposed on tourists visiting the Seychelles from November 1 - payable at the airport on arrival. The idea is to limit the number of visitors and provide funds for environment protection and improvement.

Although other countries, such as Kenya, charge tourists on the coast up to pounds 2 a week on their hotel bills to help preserve the coral reefs, the Seychelles is the first country to specifically tax tourists both to limit numbers and protect its natural heritage.

The holiday industry has sympathy for the ideals of the Seychelles' president France Albert Rene, but is suspicious that the extra revenue may be used for things other than environment protection.

Currently 130,000 tourists visit the Seychelles a year, mostly from Europe, with Britons making up around 20,000. The government wants to create a ceiling of 180,000 to guarantee the islands' main selling point of unspoilt sea and sand.

The tax is both to slow the growth rate of 10 per cent extra tourists a year and to push the Seychelles upmarket. For the payment, the visitor will receive a gold card and become a 'Friend of the Seychelles', which allows repeat visits without having to pay again.

Gilbert Pool, special adviser to the Seychelles president, estimates the cost of a holiday for two visiting three of the 155 islands in the group to be around pounds 2,500 for 10 days. However, Jake Grieves Cook, managing director of Tropical Places, offers a 12-day trip for pounds 1,000 and believes a near 10 per cent hike in the price is going to put people off.

'This is a most beautiful tropical paradise, and I have a degree of sympathy for the aim of the tax which is to keep it that way,' he says. 'I would like to know how the money raised is going to be spent. It is a fairly hefty sum, and I question whether it is entirely reasonable. Certainly the money must not go straight to the exchequer to be spent on other things.' Keith Betton, head of corporate affairs for the Association of British Travel Agents, says the organisation had tried to persuade the Seychelles government that the tax was not a good idea. The environment deserved to be protected but the the tax was too high.

The reduction in the holiday trade might outweigh the benefit the government hopes to receive from the income.

A warning of the $ 100 tax had to be entered in every holiday brochure for the November 1 deadline.

'The bottom end of the market is very price sensitive. This could send people to other holiday destinations like Mauritius,' Betton says.


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