Hotel owners protest new tax

Reprinted from The Indian Ocean Newsletter

Hotel owners protest new tax

Having returned from the 2001 World Travel Market in London from November 12 to 15, Seychelles hotel owners asked the Mahe government to revoke the 7% goods and services tax that it implemented only last month. According to them, the tax makes the islands more costly for foreign tourists and thus reduces its attraction vis-a-vis other destinations in the world. The archipelago is one of the rare countries to have adopted a new government tax in the matter, according to the spokesman for the Seychelles Hotels Association (SHA), while other nations tend to lower their prices to spur tour operators to sell more. Alain de Saint Ange asked the government to reconsider its tax decision, because it will have a detrimental effect on tourist arrivals and will endanger employment in the sector.

During a recent meeting between representatives of the administration and the private sector, which was presided by none other than the head of state, France Albert Rene, the hotel owners' delegates asked that the tax be reduced, at least temporarily, to 2%, until the sector's crisis has passed. But the government is refusing to do so, offering only the suppression of another tax destined to finance the promotion activities of tourism. At the same time, it suspended the authority of the tourism minister to decide the price of accommodations and meals, as well as the ban on hotel owners to modify the prices without his approval. From now on, the hotel owners will be able to freely absorb the new taxes through rises in the charges they offer their clients.

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