Dealing With the New Us Travel Initiative

The paramountcy of security considerations in air travel is, for Americans, some thing that has been non negotiable since terrorists slammed commercial aircraft into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. If there had been any likelihood of a lessening of intense feeling about air travel security, this was blown away by the recent plot unearthed in London against transatlantic flights to the USA.

This is the context in which we need to view the decision last week by the US lawmakers to reaffirm the deadline for the coming into effect of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. Under this measure, US citizens will be required to have passports in order to return home by air from trips to the Caribbean, Mexico and Canada. Having agreed to extend the previous deadline for its introduction from January 2006 to January 2007, US lawmakers were in no mood for a further extension.

But whilst insisting on the passport requirements for air travel beginning in January 2007, the lawmakers, apparently at the last minute, entertained lobbying efforts by the cruise-ship business to postpone the application of the requirement to cruise travellers until June 2009. This is pretty a lot in line with the treatment accorded border crossings by land in respect of Mexico and Canada. Clearly, trans border crossings and ocean travel are viewed by the Americans as becoming of lesser ranking in terms of security risks than is air travel.

Notwithstanding the lobbying efforts that should be continued at the highest political levels for comparable treatment to the cruise organization, it is crucial that the key stakeholders of the regional tourist industry intensify their campaigns in US markets to get travellers to acquire passports. The challenge that has been presented will, I am positive, open up opportunities for even more creative indicates to promote our destinations, and in the process, sensitise potential visitors about the new requirement. As of now, hoteliers, tourist boards, airlines, travel agents and tour operators have been running infomercials, but there requirements to be a heightening of awareness as the deadline approaches.

The Caribbean has been benefiting from the fear of terrorism in specific parts of the world because 9/11, and is normally seen as a relatively safe location for travel. Consequently, visitor arrivals in this region have recovered rapidly and we are now enjoying actual growth. This is even truer for the cruise business, with the Caribbean becoming dominant in that business. Jamaica has completed far better than the average in the growth of stopover visitor arrivals, as well as in cruise passengers. For the existing calendar year, we have indeed been experiencing accelerated growth rates in both areas.

Even though the cruise side of our company will be further enhanced by the extended grace period granted to it, there are justifiable fears among the hoteliers that this could be partly at the expense of land-based tourism. With a projected 1.two million stopover visitors from the USA this year and on the basis of the current level of such visitors who travel on documents other than passports, there is substantial work to be accomplished by Jamaica in particular, to mitigate the prospective damage of the bias towards the cruise company. This work will not be created simple by any lethargy by American travellers towards acquiring passports.

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