Tourism Officials Welcome U.S. Travel Card Initiative

Antigua and Barbuda’s tourism industry may see some relief from the effects of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative later this year, when a low cost passport card system is implemented in the United States.

Last week, the US State Department approved the technology for issuing passport cards which US citizens can use when traveling between the U.S. and the Caribbean, Canada, Mexico and Bermuda.

Currently, the US government is expected to limit the use of passport cards to sea and land travel and therefore only the cruise industry will see immediate impact. The State Department is to begin accepting applications for the new passport cards shortly, and expects to begin issuing the passport cards in April or May.

The passport requirement is linked to the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which was mandated by the U.S. Congress in 2004 to strengthen border security, prevent entry of terrorists and reduce use of fraudulent documents. Its requirements for air travel took effect on Jan. 23, 2007.

The vast majority of U.S. citizens do not hold passports and the passport requirement was protested by the governments of the tourism dependent countries in the Caribbean and other regional tourism stakeholders.

It was argued that this would sharply cut down impulse travel. The argument was also made that the expense and inconvenience associated with obtaining a passport would deter many potential tourists.

American adults pay $97 to obtain passports, something that Caribbean tourism officials, including Antigua and Barbuda’s Minister of Tourism Harold Lovell identified as a potential deterrent to tourists wishing to travel to the region after the travel initiative was implemented

Last week, the U.S. government postponed the travel initiative’s requirement that cruise travelers returning from the Caribbean also have passports from this month, in light of the backlog it faces in processing new passports.