Officials in two U.S. government departments are considering a proposal to extend by a year the deadline for compliance with a new rule that requires travelers returning to the United States from The Bahamas and other countries in the region to have passports.
An official in the U.S. Embassy made that disclosure on Tuesday.
According to local officials in the public and private sectors, the passport proposal as it now stands could prove to be detrimental to the tourism industry to the tune of millions of dollars if the traveling public is not made aware of the changes.
Currently, American visitors to The Bahamas travel on other types of photo ID’s like a driver’s licenses. Children are allowed to travel using a birth certificate.
The law passed by Congress last year will require all travelers including American citizens to present their passports when they re-enter the United States from other countries and territories in the Western Hemisphere.
The new rule outlines a three-stage implementation process.
The first stage that would become effective January 1, 2006 would require all air and sea travelers coming from the Caribbean, Central America and South America to present passports.
Stage two, which would become effective on January 1, 2007, would require that all air and sea travelers coming from Canada and Mexico to present a passport when seeking re-entry into the United States.
The final deadline of January 1, 2008 would require all American land travelers coming from Canada and Mexico to present passports when returning to the U.S.
“Now public comment has come back and suggested several other options that are currently being considered by the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department up in Washington,” said Mike Taylor, chief of the Political, Economic and Public Affairs Section at the U.S. Embassy in Nassau.
“One of those (options) was to consolidate the three steps into two steps so that effective January 1, 2007, all air and sea travelers coming from the Caribbean, Central America, South America, Canada and Mexico will then be subject to the passport requirements with land border travelers given the one extra year until January 1, 2008.
“No final decision has been made yet. We hope to have something soon. Just as soon as we do we will absolutely pass it a long. We understand how important this issue is here in The Bahamas.”
The American Society of Travel Agents just recently backed The Bahamas’ call for changes to the new rule.
The group made five recommendations to a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on ways to move the programme forward on a track that would sustain rather than harm the travel and tourism industry.
It asked that the deadline for the new passport initiative be delayed a year.
According to Frank Comito, executive vice president of the Bahamas Hotel Association, if granted the extension officials here plan to put it to good use by raising the traveling public’s awareness of the new passport requirement.
“With the Ministry of Tourism we are putting the final touches on an awareness campaign that would provide information very quickly to our U.S. visitors reminding them of the pending passport requirement for U.S. travelers and providing them with quick and easy information to begin the process of passport applications so that when they come back they are encouraged to come back because it’s easier for them and they have the passports,” he told the Bahama Journal on Tuesday.
Mr. Comito said that tourism officials are ideally hoping for a deadline of January 1, 2008, although any extension to the current deadline would be welcomed.
By: Tosheena Robinson-Blair, The Bahama Journal
