UK. The travel retail industry has united to launch a social media campaign with the aim of reversing the UK Government’s decision to formally abolish the Tax Free Shopping and VAT Retail Export Scheme from 1 January 2021.
The ‘It Affects Me #LookAgainTaxFree’ campaign encourages travel retail industry stakeholders to post a selfie with the caption “It Affects Me!” and the hashtag #LookAgainTaxFree to highlight the human cost of the government’s decision.
It also aims to bolster grassroots support for the industry’s lobbying work and increase public pressure on the government.
“The aim of this campaign is to get the government to look into the eyes of all those who are going to be affected by the UK Treasury’s decision,” commented Ethos Farm CEO and Co-Chair of Airport Promotion Agencies Sally Allington. “It is about putting human faces to this – there are real people out there, potentially 40,000 or more who will be directly impacted.
“There is a much wider span of job roles and sectors that will feel the impact of the abolition of tax free shopping in the UK which I do not believe has truly been considered by the UK government. By using #LookAgainTaxFree on every post we are keeping social media noise channelled through the same, existing hashtag whether posted on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn or Facebook.”
Allington said the decision “is devastating to the UK economy. Think about the jobs in airport retail, think of the jobs in high street retail, think of the tourists who will no longer choose the UK as their shopping destination.
“This will impact hotels, restaurants, tourist attractions, train companies, entertainment venues. None of these far reaching and long-lasting economic factors have been considered. Add into this the chaos and cost of having to change till systems, product pricing, consumer communications, employee communications.”
Allington has been a strong supporter of the lobbying work of New West End Company (NWEC) and Association of International Retail (AIR), which jointly launched the ‘Saving Tax Free Shopping in the UK’ campaign. AIR is led by Jace Tyrell and the Judicial Review appeals are led by Heathrow Airport and World Duty Free.
“We still have an opportunity to reverse this decision, ideally before Parliament breaks for Christmas in a couple of weeks,” Allington added.
“I appeal to everyone in the industry to get behind this campaign and while there will be organisations who represent the travel retail tobacco or liquor industries who might not see this as a topic that affects them in the same way, I can assure you if our airport customer profiles change because high-spending nationalities are no longer travelling and shopping in the UK then it is most certainly all of our problem.”
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Allington concluded by saying, “It is puzzling beyond words that at a time when ‘Global Britain’ is supposed to be ‘open for business’ and attracting the world to visit that we would decide to be the only country in Europe not to offer Tax Free shopping to international tourists.
“It is either arrogance on the part of the UK Government that tourists will visit and spend regardless, or ignorance at the true scale of this decision. Whichever it is, it will damage our aviation and retail industries at a time when they are both on their knees not to mention the impact to the wider UK economy – we must secure a reversal.”
As reported, a petition to keep tax free sales at British airports and retain the former VAT Retail Export Scheme had now gathered over 10,900 signatures.
The petition was launched in October by industry media Travel Retail Business.
Here are a few social media snapshots of our travel retail colleagues who have answered the call of the #LookAgainTaxFree campaign
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