Robert Buddan

H.R. 5441 is the Congressional Bill at the heart of the current threat to Caribbean tourism. The Bill has been received as an attack on the region's leading industry. It might not have been so intended. It was passed in Congress as a part of the government's budget for fiscal year 2006/7, which started on October 1. The Bill makes appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security of which transportation and the movement of people in and out of the United States is an important consideration. It was overwhelmingly passed in the House (412 votes for, six against, 14 not voting) on September 29. It had been passed unanimously (100 votes for, 0 against) in the Senate on July 13.

The International Council of Cruise Lines explained that a provision was included in the Bill to delay passport requirements for cruisers going to Mexico, Canada, and the Caribbean by sea, but that the deadline for a passport for those travelling by air was still in force for January 8, 2007.

It added that the delay (granted to cruise passengers) was only added to the Bill at the last minute. It appears from this that the cruise industry was better organised to lobby for this delay than the hotel and airline industries were.

What is really at stake is U.S. security. This would explain the overwhelming bipartisan support for the Bill. Americans will use a more secure PASScard when it becomes available on or before June 1, 2009. At that time the cruise and airline industries will be on the same footing. Congress might have felt that airline security posed a bigger problem and decided that it should therefore not enjoy a similar delay.

SECURITY AND TOURISM

Seen in this light, there might not have been any politics behind this Bill. There might not have been any punitive foreign policy intent. The Bill might have had nothing to do with the Caribbean's relations with Venezuela and Cuba or with American insensitivity towards the Caribbean.

It would not be correct to say, as Gordon 'Butch' Stewart has said, that the law was contrived to punish Caribbean countries for their relations with Venezuela. This only passes the blame to governments, politicises the issue and divides Caribbean people over it. It was Mr. Stewart's business as much as anybody else to know what was coming, the real reason it was coming, and to do something about it.

Airline and hotel interests rightly say that the law biases the travel industry in favour of cruise shipping (regardless of its intent). Yet, by requiring Americans to have new and authentic passports, the law might in fact benefit us.

Our tourism campaign should use this opportunity to tell the global market that travel will be safer for Americans and everybody else traveling with them on their airlines or from their country. Many non-Americans do stop over in the gateway states like Florida en route to the Caribbean, when there is no direct flight to take.

PARTNERING FOR SOLUTION

The impact on tourism might therefore arise from problems of a different nature, not from politics, but lack of communication and bureaucracy in processing new passports. Caribbean tourism interests should therefore turn their minds to smoothing out these issues.

They have the Third Border Initiative as the basis for doing so. This is an Initiative between the United States and 15 Caribbean countries, including Jamaica, arrived at in January 2004. Both sides agreed to cooperate against terrorism because of their vulnerability.

Towards this end, the Initiative called for 'regular consultations' to build 'mutual confidence' on 'mutual interests'. The two sides might not have consulted on the passport issue, but it was not unknown to us. Former Caribbean diplomat, Ronald Sanders had sounded the alarm in 2005 in the media and the matter was reported again in April this year. The Caribbean Hotel Association and regional governments had known this was likely to happen, and in truth, they had responded.

This was no guarantee that they could do anything to stop it. They did obtain a 12-month delay from January 2006 to 2007. But, they knew that only 15 per cent to 20 per cent of Americans had or travelled with a passport when they came to the Caribbean and that most used some other form of identification to be re-admitted to the U.S.

But again, it is difficult to see what they could have done, short of a very expensive campaign to inform Americans to comply with a law that had not even been passed and when most Americans would not have even made plans to travel.

PASSPORT CAMPAIGN

It takes a lot of effort for American political parties to get their people to register to vote and the results are not impressive. A campaign for them to get passports that they would have to pay US$125 for might have been a waste of our money.

Caribbean organisations must now work with travel agencies, tour operators, airlines, hotels, food and hospitality industries to remove or reduce passport fees for the first year to get around that disincentive, and seek further delay of the implementation of the law until Americans can be sufficiently informed about the passport requirement.

If Americans only need to show a passport on their return to the U.S., Caribbean and American authorities can establish bureaus in the region to assist those who need to process their passports to return. This is what partnering for solutions should mean.

It is good business for all of the related industries to join in these efforts. They must target the American people and the Caribbean Diaspora can help get the word out.

The American authorities should cooperate. It seems strange to have one standard applying to some Americans and another standard for other Americans. This could be challenged as discriminatory. The authorities should want to make equity work.

The U.S. Government should have regularly consulted with regional interests, as the Third Border Initiative requires. The Americans are concerned with national security as the Caribbean is with economic security. These two come together in the Third Border Initiative.

The Initiative said the two sides recognised "our interdependence and the importance of close cooperation." It accepted that Caribbean states were particularly vulnerable "by virtue of their small size and geographic configuration and lack of technical and financial resources." There is no better example of this than the current matter. An interdependent problem cannot have a one-sided solution.

The Initiative also said, "We are mindful that trade fosters prosperity and development and that trade and investment ties between the Caribbean and the US are essential to promoting economic development." The tourist trade is the most important of all. In 2001, Professor Norman Girvan, then Secretary General of the Association of Caribbean States, said that tourism was the most robust global growth industry and that it was the leading foreign exchange earner for 16 Caribbean states.

The Caribbean must redouble efforts to attract cruise passengers, build the port facilities to do so, get into the cruise industry itself, do more to attract European, Latin American, and other tourists, diversify our market into the incomparable areas of heritage, sports, culture, community and health tourism, and deepen links between tourism, agriculture and services so that even if we earn less, it goes deeper and circulates more widely.

Each crisis should remind us that, even with good friends, we must be prepared to stand on our own. But it is also a reminder of the importance of regionalism. We cannot do this alone.

Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, UWI. Email: Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm.