US Passport requirements will affect Caribbean tourism

Rickey Singh

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados - A former Caribbean diplomat is urging the region's governments and tourism organisations to mount an aggressive marketing campaign to cushion the negative impact expected to result from United States citizens having to be holders of passport for overseas travel, starting next year.

Sir Ronald Sanders, a former diplomat under the previous Antigua and Barbuda Government, said that with just eight months to go before the US requirement takes effect, the Caribbean - a major tourism destination for US visitors - should launch a concerted campaign to overcome the challenge that would be posed to their economies.

Sanders, now a corporate executive who regularly writes on challenges to small states in the global economy, said on the weekend that currently only 15 per cent of Americans who visit the region are passport holders.

In accordance with a new United States law, from January 1, 2006, all American citizens re-entering their homeland from this and other regions must be in possession of a valid US passport.

While the passport requirement for US citizen is related to America's new focus on national security, an expected serious reduction in the normal level of American tourists could seriously aggravate the social and economic problems of Caribbean nations.

"The consequences," said Sanders, "include higher unemployment, more crime, more vulnerability to drug-trafficking and higher immigration to the USA".

Sanders said that since it must not be assumed that the information for US citizens to be armed with passports for overseas travel is already widely known, it was the responsibility of regional organisations involved in the tourism sector to go on an educational marketing blitz.

He said that the Caribbean Tourism Organisation and the Caribbean Hotels Association, as well as individual tourist offices of the region operating in the USA, "should embark upon an immediate campaign to provide educational materials for US travel agents, tour operators on the need for US citizens to have passports..."

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Tuesday, April 19, 2005

US Passport requirements will affect Caribbean tourism by Sir Ronald Sanders, a former Caribbean diplomat, now corporate executive, who publishes widely on small states in the global community

For years United States citizens have travelled into and out of the Caribbean with no more identification documents than a driver's license. This will change between now and January 1st 2008, and will have an adverse impact on the regional tourism industry.

It is the US government that is making the change, requiring all US citizens to have valid passports to enter the US. Consequently, they must have passports to travel out of the US.

On April 6th, the US Departments of Homeland Security and State announced "The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative to secure and expedite travel". Under the initiative all U.S. citizens, will be required to have a passport or "other accepted secure document" to enter or re-enter United States by January 1, 2008.

In the past, Caribbean nationals have been irritated by the US requirement that they must have passports and visas to enter the US, while US nationals enter Caribbean countries on driver's licenses.

After 9/11, Caribbean and other non-US travellers became even more irritated with travel into the US when the US Department of Homeland Security required visitors to be fingerprinted and photographs taken of their eyeballs at US ports of entry. Many people saw this both as an intrusion on their privacy and as a humiliation.

This feeling was exacerbated by the fact that US citizens were whisked though immigration lines while visitors endured lengthy periods waiting in line to be interviewed by immigration officers.

Caribbean nationals have regarded the different treatment accorded to them and to US nationals as a double standard. They have recognized the right of the US and any other country to apply its own immigration procedures, but they have argued that these procedures should be reciprocal.

In other words, if the US required Caribbean nationals to be in possession of passports and visas to enter the US, Caribbean countries should equally require US nationals to have passports and visas to enter Caribbean countries.

But economic necessity won the day over the personal affront felt by Caribbean nationals.

Caribbean tourism relies a great deal on US tourists, and since the vast majority of Americans do not have a passport and can not be bothered to get one, Caribbean governments were content to allow them to enter their countries on driver's licenses.

Now, all of this has begun to change.

Anyone travelling into the US recently would have noticed that US citizens are no longer being whisked through immigration control at US ports of entry. Now, US citizens and residents are being questioned as closely as foreigners although their finger prints are not yet being taken nor are their eyeballs being photographed.

The lines for US citizens and residents at US immigration control are now as long as those for foreigners.

All of this flows from the extensive efforts by various departments of the US government to strengthen homeland security following the terrorist atrocities of 9/11.

The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA, also known as the 9/11 Intelligence Bill), signed into law on December 17, 2004, mandated that the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State, develop and implement a plan to require U.S. citizens and foreign nationals to present a passport, or other secure document when entering the United States.

An official release from the US Department for Homeland Security quotes Acting Under Secretary for Border and Transportation Security, Randy Beardsworth, as saying: "Our goal is to strengthen border security and expedite entry into the United States for U.S. citizens and legitimate foreign visitors. By ensuring that travellers possess secure documents, such as the passport, Homeland Security will be able to conduct more effective and efficient interviews at our borders."

The Department did say that "additional documents are also being examined to determine their acceptability for travel". However, such documents would have to "establish the citizenship and identity of the bearer, enable electronic data verification and checking, and include significant security features".

The point is that US citizens and residents travelling on documents such as drivers' licenses is now fast becoming a thing of the past, and Caribbean tourism industry will be affected by it.

In part, this is because the vast majority of Americans do not have passports, and they have not needed one to travel to the Caribbean. They have simply hopped on planes knowing that their drivers' licence or social security cards are enough.

There should not be an assumption that US Citizens will now automatically apply for passports.

The reality is that only a comparative small number of US citizens have passports, and these are business people or those with higher incomes who travel on vacation to Europe, Asia or countries outside of the Western Hemisphere.

Under the new rules, a Caribbean vacation can not be spontaneous. It will entail Americans being in possession of passports or similar documents.

This is a reality that the tourism industry in the Caribbean has to take account of now.

The industry should not expect the US public to know about the requirement that they have passports by January 1st, 2008 even though this is a stipulation of their own US Department of Homeland Security. It is surprising how little public attention has been given to this development by mainstream media in the US.

A programme of education should be launched in the US with travel agents and tour operators. And, national and regional tourist offices based in the US should each start initiatives of their own to educate the US public about the requirement for passports and how to get them.

Undoubtedly, organisations such as the Caribbean Hotels Association (CHA) and the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO) are alert to the necessity to launch such an education initiative in the US. But, money will have to be invested in the initiative from both the national and regional levels, and allocations should be made for such monies now for the years 2006 and 2007.

Failure to do so will see January 1st, 2008 arrive with a significant reduction in the number of US tourists visiting the Caribbean.

The educational task will be difficult, but it is not impossible, particularly if it is presented as exactly what it is: a US government requirement of its own citizens to strengthen the security arrangements of their own country.

The problem is overcoming a lifelong US habit of not needing a passport to travel to the Caribbean.

It may be argued that the US government will educate its citizens about the passport requirements and there is no need for the Caribbean to do so. But, accepting this argument would be dangerously short sighted.

The financial implications for the Caribbean tourism industry of spontaneous vacations not occurring, or holidays being cancelled for lack of a passport, are quite significant.

There will be a reduction in the numbers who visit the region in the immediate period after the new passport requirements are introduced on January 1st 2008; it will be worse if the Caribbean does not launch an educational programme of its own in the US.

(responses to: ronaldsanders29@hotmail.com)

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Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Dealing with impact of US passports urgent by Sir Ronald Sanders, a former Caribbean diplomat, now corporate executive, who publishes widely on small states in the global community

I am revisiting the impact on Caribbean tourism of the US government requirement that Americans have passports to re-enter the US because the matter is urgent.

In just eight months time, on January 1st 2006, US Citizens re-entering the US from the Caribbean must be in possession of a valid US passport.

This is an extremely short period in which to prepare. .

In a nutshell the problem is a significantly reduced number of US visitors to the region, a significantly reduced number of airlines and cruise ships coming to the Caribbean, and a significant reduction in jobs and the amount of money earned from tourism by the region. In other words, it can be catastrophic.

Here are the facts of the matter.

Only 15% of Americans have passports. This means that most US tourists to the Caribbean have been in the habit of travelling to the region mostly on drivers' licences.

The Director of Tourism of Jamaica, Paul Pennicook, confirmed that more than 50% of US visitors to Jamaica in 2004 travelled without a passport. The Tourism authorities in the Bahamas are also aware that US Citizens travel with birth certificates and a government-issued photo identification.

Given these realities, it is evident that the requirement for a passport will greatly reduce the number of cruise ship passengers and passengers on airlines who visit the region. Spontaneous travel will be particularly affected.

As the number of people who can travel declines, so too will the number of flights and cruise ships into the region. Neither planes nor cruise ships will fly or sail without an optimum number of passengers, so that even where US persons have passports, their opportunities for travel to the region will be decreased.

Already, many Eastern Caribbean governments are subsidising the flights of some US carriers into their countries. These governments can hardly afford to subsidise even more flights, particularly if the number of passengers is greatly reduced. Yet the US airlines themselves say "every single flight on average must be at east 80% full of paying passengers to avoid losing money".

The US airlines are in deep financial trouble that is worsening with higher fuel prices. Just recently, John Heimlich, Vice President and Chief Economist of Air Transport Association of America said, "Over the last four years, the industry - in total - has recorded over $32 billion in losses... We are projecting additional losses of at least $5 billion in 2005".

His also says that he "expects some airlines to go out of business - it's all a question of how quickly".

It requires no great genius to see that if the number of passengers on planes into the Caribbean is reduced by the US government requirement that such passengers should have passports, airlines that are already in financial trouble will reduce flights in to the region.

The Caribbean-owned airline industry - BWIA and Air Jamaica in particular - will also face serious difficulties. They too are mired in financial problems, and since the major portion of their operations are to the US and roughly half their traffic are US tourists, they will be even worse off.

Authorities in the Bahamas and Jamaica have been particularly vocal in complaining that the new requirement isn't fair because Canada and Mexico have an extra year to prepare for the measure.

But, it has to be recalled that Mexico and Canada would have been given a longer period because of US membership with them in the North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA).

Obviously, Americans are doing more business in Mexico and Canada because of NAFTA. In this particular circumstance, the US would not want to hinder the free trade objectives of NAFTA if they recognise that many Americans have been visiting these two countries for business without passports.

Nonetheless, acknowledging the NAFTA relationship should not stop Caribbean government and tourism officials from lobbying the US for an extension of the January 1st 2006 deadline. Every effort should be made to impress on the US authorities the importance not only to the Caribbean, but to the US itself, of extending the time.

While it is understood that it is US concern about its security that is pushing the need for better identification of persons entering the US as US citizens, the US also needs to take account of the high reliance of many Caribbean countries on tourism, and the consequences that a decline would have on their economies and on the US itself.

These consequences include higher unemployment, more crime including a vulnerability to aiding drug trafficking to the United States, and higher immigration into the US.

The US should be encouraged to see that an extension of time to allow the region's tourism to prepare better for the new passport measures would help the Caribbean to maintain employment, fight drug trafficking and stem immigration.

Beyond lobbying with the US, Caribbean authorities have to recognise two things.

First, there will be no rush by Americans to get passports. Americans travel mostly within the US for which they do not require passports. US persons will get passports only when they believe they need them.

Second because the Caribbean is aware that US citizens now need passports, it should not be assumed that this information is widely known in the US. Most Americans get their information from Television, and even then only in a limited way. Unless, the local and national television stations headline this story, it will not be widely known.

In any event, even if the information is widely known, no one will do anything about getting a passport unless they are actually planning to travel. Then they will need information on how to get a passport.

These two things suggest that Caribbean countries that rely on US tourism cannot depend on the information being disseminated by the US authorities; they have to take the initiative themselves.

It calls for a close working relationship with the US airlines, US cruise ships, US tour operators and US travel agents that serve the Caribbean. They have a vested interest in addressing the problem since they too stand to loose money.

The regional tourism organisations such as the Caribbean Hotels Association (CHA) and the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO) as well as the individual Caribbean Tourist offices in the US should embark upon an immediate campaign to provide educational material for US travel agents, tour operators on the need for US Citizens to have passports and where and how to get them.

Importantly, the material has to explain that it is the US government that has made this requirement in the interest of US homeland security. Americans have to see it as their patriotic duty and in their own interests to get passports.

The US government itself will take some time to issue passports. The lag time for issuing passports is 6 to 8 weeks. If the number of applications increases, this lag time might also increase.

In this connection, Caribbean governments and tourism officials should also work closely with the US government to ensure that resources are placed behind the process for issuing passports, including ensuring that there is an adequate number in stock.

The introduction by the US of the requirement that their citizens have passports to re-enter the US comes at a time when Caribbean tourism and the Caribbean aviation industry can least afford it. The impact on Caribbean economies, more reliant on ever on tourism, could be very severe.

Dealing with the problem is urgent and the support of all groups within society should be garnered to help deal with it. But the focus must be in the US itself, and this work should start immediately.

(responses to: ronaldsanders29@hotmail.com)

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