BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC):

The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) has predicted massive job losses in the Caribbean as it joined the Caribbean in opposing new rules passed last week by the United States Congress to make it mandatory for Americans travelling by air to have passports by 2007.

"The United States Congress has effectively laid off 188,300 Caribbean workers," the London-based forum of travel and tourism business leaders said in a statement Friday, referring to a study it carried out last year on the likely impact of the new rules on the tourism-dependent region.

Big loss predicted

The WTTC's assessment of the so-called Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which was passed by the lower chamber of American law-makers last week, estimated that the region stands to lose US$2.6 billion and more than 188,300 travel and tourism jobs.

"These forecasts are extremely alarming and it is discriminative that airlines do not share a similar level of support to that given to cruise and land-based tourism," WTTC president Jean-Claude Baumgarten said in the statement.

"The economic contribution of travel and tourism to Caribbean economies is significant and the airlines are pivotal to this area of the economy."

According to the report, done in collaboration with the Caribbean Hotel Association, only 27 per cent of all Americans have current, valid passports. Most Americans who travel to Caribbean nations tend to rely on driver's licences.

Eight out of 10 American citizens visiting Jamaica do not use passports, the WTTC study said. In St. Vincent and the Grenadines half of all US visitors use either a drivers licence or a passport. However, passport usage was found to be higher in the Bahamas where one in three Americans do not carry the travel documents, while in Antigua the figure is one in four.

The council, which is comprised of chief executives of the world's top 100 travel and tourism companies, pledged to continue to back the Caribbean member association to deal with "this urgent matter" in Washington.

Arising out of the 9/11 Commission recommendations, the WHTI will require all US citizens and visitors to present a passport or acceptable alternative document for entry into the United States from any country in the Western Hemisphere.

The measure was set to roll out over a series of dates from January 8, 2007 through January 1, 2008.

Tourism industry officials up and down the Americas have complained about:Confusion surrounding varying implementation dates depending on land, sea or air crossings.The lack of an effective plan for communicating the changes,The absence of a widely available substitute for the passport. This fact they said could threaten economies dependent on travel between the United States and other Western Hemisphere nations.

The US Department of Homeland Security and the State Department had unveiled a low-cost, high-tech passport substitute, known as a PASS Card (People Access Security Service).

A timeline for the introduction of the PASS Card, which is expected to contain biometric data to defeat counterfeiting, has not yet been announced as federal agencies are yet to agree on details of its availability, technology and usage.