Paying for what you do not enjoy?

Dec 30, 2016 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The last impression of a country is often the most enduring. Tourists who have a horrid experience at a country’s airport when leaving are not likely to return to suggest to their friends and family that they visit that country.
Many countries throughout the world have recognized this face. This is why many countries have abolished the direct payment of security and departure taxes. These countries do not wish to put tourists though the hassle of joining one line to check-in, then another line to pay the taxes, then another line for immigration controls, then another line for security checks.
They have abolished the direct payment of security and departure taxes and have instead built these in to the general taxes on airline tickets.
Guyana is not learning from the rest of the world. Instead of moving forward we are stepping backwards. On top of the decision to increase the toll for crossing the Demerara Harbour Bridge, now comes the announcement that the security taxes will be increased at the airport. This means that persons leaving our airport now have to find an additional one thousand dollar to pay an increased security taxes.
This is not the departing experience you want for tourists. You want people to spend their monies in the country where they can derive a benefit. To ask tourists to pay a tax at the airport is a disincentive towards promoting tourism. The payment of these taxes at the airport should be abolished and instead other ways found to finance the operations of the airport.
Hundreds of passengers pass through our airports each day. They are met by hundreds more. They are sent off by hundreds more, all of whom have to be peeking through the glass walls of the departure area to see what is going on inside. Guyana is the only airport in the world where persons going to see others off are separated at the check-in area. In all other airports of the world, the separation is at the security check in or immigration area.
The hundreds of persons who traffic our departure terminal each day represent a revenue stream which could be tapped to help finance the operations of the airport. But Guyana has a better option, tax the hell out of departing passengers.
Guyana cannot be serious about developing its tourism product if this is the final experience it gives to passengers. To ask a passenger to fork out an additional $25 or more US just to pass through a scanner at the airport and for a departure tax is unconscionable and exploitative.
Guyana has to do better. It can do better.
Guyana is no security threat to the world. It is not as if hundreds of persons are passing through our airport with weapons or drugs. The number of persons caught committing crimes at our airport each month can be counted on your hands. Why then increase the security taxes?
Increasing the tax punishes the innocent more than it does those who commit crimes at the airport. The majority of passengers have to now pay an increased security tax so that a handful of criminals can be better intercepted.
The better option would be to increase the penalties for those caught violating the laws of the country while passing through the airport. The revenues collected from such penalties can then be channeled to the airport authorities.
The increases in the security tax follows closely on the heels on an increase in parking fees at the airport. Yet even with this increase in parking fees, there is no visible sign of increased security in the parking lot.
Is this increase in the security fees therefore really about security? Or is it about increasing revenues to meet the administrative costs of the airport. What services does the airport provide for persons at the airport?
The viewing gallery gives a spectacular view … of the roof of the lower canopy of the airport. The area is not well patronized because you can hardly give your kids the experience of seeing an aircraft lift off or land.
But this is Guyana. You pay for things you never get.