Janet Silvera, Senior Tourism Writer

Passengers disembarking an Air Jamaica flight at Sangster International Airport. - File

Freeport, Bahamas:

A high-level group of lobbyists will meet with the United States Homeland Security Department in Washington, D.C. tomorrow to press the Caribbean's case for an extension of the time for United States citizens to present passports on re-entering the country.

This was confirmed by Vincent Vanderpool Wallace, secretary general of the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO), who spoke to The Sunday Gleaner immediately after the Caribbean Tourism Ministers meeting at the Caribbean Tourism Conference (CTC-29) in The Bahamas yesterday.

Effective January 8, 2007, the U.S. Government requires all air travellers in the Western Hemisphere arriving in the U.S. from the Caribbean to present valid passports on landing. While the U.S. Government has extended the time period by two years for cruise ship passengers, the deadline for airline passengers is a short two months away.

This has caused consternation among local and regional hoteliers, who fear a collosal fallout in land-based American tourists. The fear is grounded in the fact that U.S. citizens have been travelling to the Caribbean without passports for decades.

The CTO head said a unanimous decision was taken that before a delegation of heads of governments and foreign affairs ministers goes to Washington, D.C., it was important to ensure that the tourism sector has a very strong support from U.S. companies that are negatively affected by the decision. He said a trip by the region's heads to Washington, D.C. would be the last resort.

Mr. Wallace said that there has been a major turnaround in the last 10 days, commenting that "a number of airlines that were previously opposed to the extension originally, have now reversed themselves (and) are now supporting us."

He added that whatever interests were impeding the region from getting an extension approved, those interests are now prepared to offer their support, which is a much more powerful force than Caribbean tourism intersts going on their own.

Mr. Wallace said if the heads of governments went to Washington, and were turned down, the region would have nowhere else to turn to.