US passport requirements will affect Caribbean tourism

For years United States citizens have traveled into and out of the Caribbean with no more identification documents than a driver´s license. This will change between now and January 1, 2008, and will have an adverse impact on the region´s tourism industry, according to a news analysis by the Caribbean Media Corporation.

It is the US government that is making the change, requiring all US citizens to have valid passports to enter the US. Consequently, they must have passports to travel out of the US.

On April 6, the US Departments of Homeland Security and State announced "The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative to secure and expedite travel". Under the initiative all U.S. citizens, will be required to have a passport or "other accepted secure document" to enter or re-enter United States by January 1, 2008.

US citizens are no longer being whisked through immigration control at US ports of entry. Now, US citizens and residents are being questioned as closely as foreigners although their fingerprints are not yet being taken nor are their eyeballs being photographed.

The lines for US citizens and residents at US immigration control are now as long as those for foreigners.

All of this flows from the extensive efforts by various departments of the US government to strengthen homeland security following the terrorist atrocities of 9/11.

The point is that US citizens and residents traveling on documents such as drivers´ licenses is now fast becoming a thing of the past, and Caribbean tourism industry will be affected by it.

In part, this is because the vast majority of Americans do not have

passports, and they have not needed one to travel to the Caribbean. They have simply hopped on planes knowing that their drivers´ licence or social security cards are enough.

There should not be an assumption that US Citizens will now automatically apply for passports.

The reality is that only a comparative small number of US citizens have passports, and these are business people or those with higher incomes who travel on vacation to Europe, Asia or countries outside of the Western Hemisphere.

Under the new rules, a Caribbean vacation can not be spontaneous. It will entail Americans being in possession of passports or similar documents.

This is a reality that the tourism industry in the Caribbean has to take account of now.