The Department of Homeland Security set
Jan. 23 as the new starting date for a regulation requiring airline
passengers entering the U.S. by air from within the Western
Hemisphere to possess a valid passport.
The new date for
the regulation, referred to as the Western Hemisphere Travel
Initiative, was the result of a delay in the rule-making process
that pushed back the original Jan. 8 start date by two
weeks.
The delay,
according to Joanna Gonzalez, spokeswoman for the Department of
Homeland Security, was due to "drafting process" procedures, rather
than any difficulty with the regulation.
Although
conceding that the new date might confuse some air passengers,
Richard Webster, vice president of government affairs for the
Travel Industry Association, said overall the delay was "not a big
deal."
"Some will read
into it that there was some sort of political intrigue or
infighting or battling," he said.
"But this is just
a very busy period of time. There are a lot of things that [DHS is]
working on.
"We have said all
along that [regulations] shouldn't be implemented until they are
ready to go. They need to get it right."
The passport rule
for air passengers has raised the ire of the Caribbean tourism
industry, which fears island destinations will lose business as
travelers without passports decide to go elsewhere.
According to
Caribbean Tourism Organization officials, the two-week delay in
implementation "will only create further confusion in the
marketplace among both consumers and the airlines, which have to
police this measure. This helps no one."
The Caribbean
Hotel Association was just as blunt in its assessment of the date
change. "Although the [new date] gives the affected destinations a
longer window of opportunity to step up lobbying and/or
consumer-awareness efforts, it does not make any difference as it
relates to the increased potential economic damage to land-based
tourism due to the exemption given cruise lines," it said,
referring to the U.S. decision to defer the passport requirement
for returning cruise passengers and land border crossings to June
2009.
The position of
the hotel association "continues to be for the equal application of
the law to all sectors and countries," the CHA added.
The WHTI has its
origins in an anti-terrorism measure signed into law by President
Bush in December 2004 that mandated the development of programs to
improve border security.
To contact the reporters who wrote this article, send
e-mail to Michael Milligan at [email protected] or Gay Nagle Myers at [email protected]..