Beautiful Virgin Islands

Tuesday, Oct 14, 2025

Cruise passengers ‘need to pay their fair share’ of environmental levy- Hon Flax-Charles

Cruise passengers ‘need to pay their fair share’ of environmental levy- Hon Flax-Charles

Arguing that the cruise ship sector has one of the “greatest impacts” on the environment, the Junior Minister for Trade and Economic Development, Hon Shereen D. Flax-Charles (AL), has said cruise ship passengers must be made to pay the Environmental and Tourism Levy.

The Environmental and Tourism Levy of $10.00, to be paid upon arrival at all ports of entry, became effective on September 1, 2017.


Arguing that the cruise ship sector has one of the 'greatest impacts' on the environment, Junior Minister for Trade and Economic Development Hon Shereen D. Flax-Charles (AL) has said cruise passengers must be made to pay the Environmental and Tourism Levy.

Exemptions

All visitors aged three years and older are expected to pay the levy; however, legislation makes provision for exemptions for residents and belongers; non-residents two years or under; officers of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court; guests of the Government; official representatives of the Government of any country/Territory; persons accorded diplomatic privileges in accordance with the Diplomatic Privileges Ordinance; and persons exempted by the Minister by Order published in the Gazette

Other exemptions include visitors arriving in the Virgin Islands on a second or subsequent occasion in the course of the same visit; persons in transit who on arrival do not leave the airport or dock; crew of vessels and cruise passengers arriving to the Territory via cruise lines, according to Government Information Services (GIS) on May 25, 2018.

Pay ‘fair share’- Hon Flax-Charles

“The cruise passengers, we welcome them, we love to have them, but they need to pay their fair share.

“And I don’t want anybody to take it out of context. I don’t have an issue with cruise passengers, but if the land-based and the charter yachts pay that environmental levy when those passengers come in to hop onboard those yachts or go into the hotels and villas, we need to take a closer look,” Hon Flax-Charles stated during her contribution to the Budget Debate during the Continuation of the Ninth Sitting of the Fourth Session of the Fourth House of Assembly (HoA) at Save the Seed Energy Centre in Duff's Bottom, Tortola, on December 20, 2022.

The At-Large Representative argued that the Territory needs revenue and making cruise passengers pay the environmental levy is a way to get additional revenues into the coffers.

‘Average American tourist has no issue paying’

“We are not going to nickel and dime persons, but the average American tourist has no issue whatsoever paying to assist in maintaining Nature’s Little Secrets, and yes I said it because we are still Nature’s Little Secrets,” Hon Flax-Charles said.

Funds generated from the Environmental and Tourism Levy are supposed to be used to protect the Territory’s environment; and are meant to be applied towards activities related to environmental protection and improvement, minimising climate change, maintaining and developing tourism sites, and other tourism activities.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
EU Deploys New Biometric Entry/Exit System: What Non-EU Travelers Must Know
Australian Prime Minister’s Private Number Exposed Through AI Contact Scraper
Ex-Microsoft Engineer Confirms Famous Windows XP Key Was Leaked Corporate License, Not a Hack
China’s lesson for the US: it takes more than chips to win the AI race
Australia Faces Demographic Risk as Fertility Falls to Record Low
California County Reinstates Mask Mandate in Health Facilities as Respiratory Illness Risk Rises
Israel and Hamas Agree to First Phase of Trump-Brokered Gaza Truce, Hostages to Be Freed
French Political Turmoil Elevates Marine Le Pen as Rassemblement National Poised for Power
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
×