Tourism Minister Aloun Assamba has brushed aside suggestions by her Oppo-sition counterpart that the new passport requirement for Ameri-cans re-entering the United States, effective January 8, 2007, would have a devastating impact on Jamaica's tourist sector and the wider Caribbean.

Fielding questions in Parliament on Tuesday from Edmund Bartlett, Opposition Spokesman on Tourism, Mrs. Assamba said that, while the new policy is expected to have some impact on the tourism product in the region, data supplied by the Immigration Department do not suggest a major fallout in Jamaica.

According to the Tourism Minister, 95 per cent of Americans who visited the island in August 2006 owned a passport. This represents a 13 percentage point increase over 2005 when 82 per cent of U.S. visitors travelled to Jamaica with passports.

Settling sales

"We have always measured how successful we will be based on our forward booking, and we not only work on the bookings but we work on settling those sales," she said.

However, Mr. Bartlett told his parliamentary colleagues that hoteliers across the Caribbean have expressed concern about the negative effects of the new passport regime on the region, noting that Jamaica and The Bahamas would face greater setbacks.

Mrs. Assamba disagreed, stating: "I am confident that, notwithstanding some things which have been said, the evidence suggests that we will not have this fallout."

Meanwhile, the Jamaica Tourist Board has introduced a Passport to Rewards Programme aimed at offering incentives to U.S. citizens to acquire their passports to travel to Jamaica.

As part of this initiative visitors who travel to the island after January 8 with new passports, and have Jamaica as the first port of entry stamped in their passport, will receive special incentives from hotels participating in the programme.