Janet Silvera, Senior Tourism Writer

Assamba

Freeport, The Bahamas:

Recent analyses show that over 90 per cent of American visitors to Jamaica have used passports, easing fears of a collapse in the island's tourism business when new regulations come into force in January.

Details of the report prepared by the Jamaican Immigration Department have not been made public, but the broad findings of the survey were confirmed by Tourism Minister Aloun Assamba here where she is attending a regional tourism conference.

Psychological cushion

But while acknowledging that the information provides Jamaica a psychological cushion, Mrs. Assamba made it clear that this would not deter Jamaica's and the Caribbean's effort to persuade the US to delay the implementation of the passport regulation.

"Even though the effect won't be as devastating, this does not stop our efforts in sending out the word that all Americans need to get a passport," Mrs. Assamba told The Gleaner at the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO) conference.

The Americans began talking of the passport regulations after the 9/11 terrorist attacks five years ago, but Congress, after a number of delays, last month passed a bill that will require American air travellers returning home from this region to have passports.

However, the legislation provides a two-year moratorium to cruise passengers, causing an outcry from the region's governments and tourism groups which argue that this arrangement could devastate the land-based business that provides upwards of 90 per cent of gross tourism earnings.

Jamaica, which had over 2.6 million visitor arrivals last year and earned US$1.54 billion, was projected to be among the hardest hit. An estimated 1.4 million of those tourists were stop-over visitors who arrived by airline, and 72 per cent of them were Americans.

A World Travel and Tourism Council analysis last year projected that with the passport regulation in place, tens of thousands of visitors would stay away from the island, hundreds of millions of dollars would be lopped from earnings and about 113,000 tourism-related jobs would be lost in Jamaica, nearly half of the projection for the entire region.

Dire predictions

In the face of these dire predictions, tourism interests have recently stepped up their lobbying to have the Americans soften their passport requirements and a delegation from the CTO and US backers are to meet this week with administration officials from the Department of Homeland Security.

At briefing a week ago, the Finance Minister Dr. Omar Davies suggested that he had not projected any major decline in tourism earnings in the new year. He said too that he was unaware of the model used by local industry officials for their dire prediction of decline.