Travelzoo is aiming to bring down the cost of family-holiday travel in the UK. Travel during school holidays is more expensive than any other period and from September, 2013, new government legislation will come into effect that will obligate schools to reject holiday requests for children to be taken out of school during term time.
Travelzoo are calling this the ‘Parent Trap’as families are forced to travel during school-holiday times, when prices are highest.
Travelzoo’s European managing director, Richard Singer has worked in the travel industry for many years and decided to start this campaign via an online e-petition to lobby the UK government to consider suspending or reducing Air Passenger Duty (APD) during the six weeks of the school summer-holiday period. APD is an extra tax that is added on to flights departing from the UK, and it varies depending on the distance you are travelling. APD on a typical holiday to a long-haul destination adds at least £350 to the travel bill for a family of four.
This is one simple way to help reduce the price of family holidays. He needs to get to 10,000 signatures to get an initial response from the government and a total of 100,000 signatures on the e-petition in order to bring this debate to Parliament.
“I urge all of you who feel passionately about affordable travel for families and teachers to sign the petition. So far we have over 7,500 signatures and lots of support on our Facebook page. If you sign our petition and urge your friends and family to do the same, we may just be able to bring down the cost of family travel” said Richard.
Click here now to sign the petition: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/53002