A consultation on the future of APD is expected to be announced by the chancellor in the next Budget on March 23.
Jamaica tourism minister Edmund Bartlett said his sources suggest that a successor regime to APD will be revealed and that the Caribbean will be involved in putting that regime together.
The consultation would, he added, take about six to eight weeks but nothing was likely to change until 2012.
Bartlett described a “congealing of support globally” for a change to APD and reiterated Jamaica’s position that the UK tax is an unfair one due to the placement of the four bands.
The Caribbean has suggested replacing the four-band system with a two-band regime that would separate countries into short-haul and long-haul.
Bartlett explained: “This would mean an increase for short-haul destinations and a decrease for long-haul to create a revenue-neutral situation for the UK government.
“This would mean consumers continue to suffer but the destinations would be impacted less and in a fairer way.”
Bartlett said his sources also suggest that an improving economic outlook meant that the current APD levels would not increase again.
Bartlett has been invited by his counterparts in South Africa to join a discussion at the ITB trade show in March to discuss APD. He said he expected various countries impacted by APD to take part.
If Bartlett’s prediction of a consultation and change in the structure of APD does not come to fruition, an alternative course of action would be to go through international diplomatic channels such as the World Tourism Organization.
But he added: “I am hopeful that it won’t come to that. I am confident a fair solution can be found.”