At a time when travel, worldwide, is in the doldrums, you’d think that people involved in the business would be doing anything they could to attract more customers, like slashing fares, cutting room rates, inventing breathtaking special offers, two-one-deals, stay for ten, pay for five, that kind of thing.

For the most part, travel operators are pulling out all the stops, even those who’ve taken a bit longer than Sleeping Beauty to wake up to the fact that the good times are over.

Mostly, that is, except the UK government which, in a deft and unmatchable stroke of timing, is hiking passport fees. The cost of renewing your passport is now £77.50. That’s 85 percent increase in four years, according to the Times of London. (This follows the government’s recent decision to hike the Air Passenger Duty by 112 percent in November.)

In a statement on its website, the Identity & Passport Service provides a bit of early comedy on this fine Friday afternoon: “The decision to increase passport fees follows a decline in passport applications experienced during these difficult economic times.”

You couldn’t make this up.

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