Guests and crew of Royal Caribbean's 'Freedom of the Seas', which made its inaugural visit to Montego Bay, St. James, recently, as part of its maiden voyage, are entertained during the cruise ship's short stop in the second city. - NOEL THOMPSON/FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER
THE CARIBBEAN, the world's most tourism-dependent region, has again warned that it could lose up to US$2.6 billion annually, and nearly 200,000 jobs, when America imposes its new passport regime for citizens travelling abroad.
The Caribbean Hotel Association (CHA), however, says the impact will be worse if the region is exempt from a proposed extension of the January 2007 date for implementing the regime.
There are now suggestions for a June 2009 introduction of the scheme but air travellers from the Caribbean would, apparently, not be covered by this delay, raising fears that it would shift business further away from hotels to cruise liners.
"To exclude the Caribbean in any proposed extension of the introductory date will have a further major devastating impact on the economies and jobs lost in the Caribbean and on the livelihood of Caribbean people," Alec Sanguinetti, the secretary general of the CHA, said in a June 5 letter to U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.
VALID PASSPORTS REQUIREMENT
The U.S., as part of its strategy against global terrorism, last year announced it would require its citizens returning from trips to Latin American and Caribbean countries to travel on valid passports.
At the time, the CHA, using a study prepared by the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), said the move would impact 17 of its 36 member countries, wiping US$2.6 billion from their tourism income and placing 188,300 jobs in jeopardy.
Jamaica, which receives over 70 per cent of its tourists from the U.S., more than 80 per cent of whom do not now use passports, would be hardest hit by the passport rule.
"After factoring together this information, the results show that Jamaica has US$1.1 billion in visitor exports in jeopardy," the CHA study said.
In other words, Jamaica alone would account for over 30 per cent of the income that would be lost to the Caribbean by the U.S. policy. But, more important, it would represent a slash of over 50 per cent of the island's annual earnings from the sector.
In fact, based on the CHA analysis, Jamaica's loss would be more than double that of the Dominican Republic (US$485 million) and The Bahamas (US$446 million).
"On a relative scale, that is, percentage of visitor exports in jeopardy, the largest impact will again be felt by Jamaica where 58.4 per cent of its visitor exports might be hurt," the study said.
All of this would translate into the loss of 114,000 jobs in Jamaica, more than twice the 48,000 that would go in the Dominican Republic and nearly nine times the 13,000 in The Bahamas.
Regional governments and industry lobbyists held up these chilling statistics to Washington for a rethink of the policy.
