AN ADDRESS
BY THE
DIRECTOR OF TOURISM
MR. BASIL SMITH
TO THE
LIONS CLUB OF NEW KINGSTON
Knutsford Court Hotel
Monday, 2007 January 29
Salutations
I am grateful for the opportunity to address you this evening. I
truly appreciate the value of civic organizations such as yours to
our society. The various charity works that you are involved in,
including feeding and providing shelter and medical care for the
poor and indigent are admirable. It is a pleasure to address
civic-minded persons such as yourselves and am delighted that
you have an interest in developments within the tourist industry.
The two main issues that are current within the industry are the
introduction of the CARICOM Special Visa for Cricket World Cup
and the implementation of the new US passport regulations for
traveling Americans.
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Recently, I spoke to the Kiwanis Club of West St. Andrew about
the visa issue and am glad that I have another opportunity to
speak on the matter again. We are less than fifty days away from
staging a major world-sporting event and it is critical that I use
every chance I get to clear the air on this one.
Due to security reason, CARICOM Heads made a decision to
introduce the Caricom Special visa on a temporary basis during
the staging of Cricket World Cup. This requirement is in effect
from February 1 to May 15 and allows travelers freedom of
movement within regional states to enjoy the tournament.
As such, a CARICOM Single Domestic Space was created,
allowing different Caribbean states to effectively operate as one
nation for the purpose of the World Cup.
The 10 Caricom states that are a part of the Single Domestic
Space include:
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Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana,
Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St Vincent and the
Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago.
Nationals of all countries except Canada, France, Germany,
Japan, Ireland, Italy, South Africa, Spain, the Netherlands, United
Kingdom, the United States and all CARICOM nationals except
Haiti, will be required to obtain the CARICOM Special Visa to
enter the host countries during the four-month period.
Effectively, only about 5 per cent of our visitors, mainly in
European nations would be affected by this requirement.
We recognize that this DOES pose some inconvenience, and
WILL result in some fallout.
As such, we were careful to put measures in place to minimize
the impact. These include:
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1.
Reduction in the visa processing time from 3 weeks to 3-4
days.
2.
A 24-hour hotline had been established to allow airlines to
contact Immigration authorities on any emergencies.
3.
This supplements the online visa application and query
system, already established at
http://www.caricomimpacs.org/
4.
Liaison persons have been established at the Caribbean
Tourism Organization (CTO) for Communications and
administration issues with the media and with the travel
trade.
5.
A virtual information and exchange hub will be established
to enable a constant flow of key information with tourism
stakeholders.
6.
CTO is working with the developers of the visa application
and information site to make it more user-friendly.
7.
Applications may now be submitted to all Jamaican
embassies in Europe for processing and delivery to one of
the visa issuing sites.
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8.
Member of the Single Domestic Space will communicate
directly and promptly with all key tour operators who serve
the region through their respective territories. In fact, here
in Jamaica, the Tour Operators have been involved in all
the discussions since the regime was announced.
Additionally, a meeting was held in Aruba at Caribbean
Marketplace to address all the concerns of the tour
operators.
The visa fee for children twelve years of age and younger was
waived, though, application is still necessary.
Contrary to what has been stated, the visa process is not a
tedious one. To apply for the passport persons will need: A valid
passport, two passport photographs and the passport fee.
Though visas can be issued to passengers on arrival in Jamaica,
all efforts will be made to ensure that persons are issued with
their Caricom visa before departure from their home state.
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As stated earlier, the other issue of concern is the newly
introduced passport requirement for US citizens returning from
a visit to the Caribbean. This came into effect on January 23.
According to the regulations, all persons, including US citizens
travelling by air between the US and the Caribbean as well as
Mexico, South and Central America and Canada will need a
passport to re-enter the States.
Caribbean/Jamaican stakeholders in the travel and hospitality
sectors have been concerned about the implementation of the
new rule as it could have a negative impact on their business
and subsequently on employment. In addition, the rule, at this
time does not apply to cruise passengers entering the US, nor
does it apply to US territories such as Puerto Rico and the US
Virgin Islands. As such, there are concerns about the playing
field being uneven which could work against countries like
Jamaica that are subject to the new regulation.
In response to this development, the JTB along with private
sector partners has initiated a few activities aimed at educating
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persons about the new regulations and reminding and
encouraging persons to apply for the document. The initiatives
include:
•
Collaborating with the United States Postal Service in
establishing sign-up stations or Jamaica Morning Coffee Breaks
at major commuter terminals in the US. The aim of this is to
provide information on travelling to Jamaica as well as the new
passport requirements. The booths also facilitated on-site
application for passport while serving free Jamaican Blue
Mountain coffee.
•
The Passport to Rewards programme was initiated in
associations with the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association
(JHTA) and offers rewards equal to the value of obtaining a
passport to US citizens who have “Jamaica” stamped in their
new document as their first port of entry. Rewards include:
1) Hotel extension stay
2) Hotel Room upgrade
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3) Gift shop purchases
4) Spa services
5) Golf green fees
6) Photo shop services
7) Shopping
8) Late check out
More than 40 properties are involved in this programme.
•
Media outreach: Information and news releases about the
Jamaican passport initiatives have been issued to the US media
to build awareness among Americans. In addition, the JTB
initiated Paid Search with sites such as google.com, yahoo.com
and msn.com to incorporate specific keywords pertaining to the
new passport law.
•
Email Blast to subscribers of various travel magazines and
clients of travel agencies, while online travel sites have been
providing information to travellers on the need to obtain a
passport.
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
US Travel agents are continuing to sensitize persons about
the new rule and have reported that most of their clients have
passports
•
The JTB will continue apace with its marketing efforts to
ensure that business is at least sustained at the current level
and that there is no significant downturn in business to Jamaica
What has been the impact of our public education campaign?
According to information from the Jamaica Passport and
Immigration Department, 17 to 21 per cent of Americans visiting
the island came without a passport in 2005. In 2006, the ratio fell
to between 5 and 8 per cent. Currently, just about 5 per cent of
US visitors come to Jamaica without a passport.
Information on the Department of Homeland Security’s website
indicates that the public awareness of the travel requirement
continues to grow. The data revealed that since the week of
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Thanksgiving in November 2006, 83 per cent of US citizens
arrived in the US with passports.
Current data showed that over 90 percent of U.S. citizens flying
to the United States over the past week arrived with passports,
according to a release published on the Department of
Homeland Security’s website on January 23, the deadline date.
Major airlines which service the island, including Delta,
Continental and American Airlines have not reported a fall-off in
bookings, nor are they seeing a large number of their clients
boarding without their passports. In fact, checks by the JTB with
these airlines on the day the regulation came into effect found
that no-one boarded these aircraft without a passport.
Our JTB representative in the mid-west region of the United
States, Donnie Dawson reported that US Tour Operators were
not experiencing any significant impact on business so far as a
result of the new regulation. Notwithstanding, there seems to be
a slight softening of business from the mid-west when
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compared to last year, but this may be due to other factors. We
have found that there is no definitive or clear-cut correlation
between the slight down turn in business and the introduction of
the new passport rule. In fact the softening in business could be
as a result of a not-so-severe Winter this year compared to last
year. In addition we are aware that Jamaica is being faced with
greater competition from Cancun this year than it did in 2006.
Travel agents have also reported that businesses to competitors
such as USVI and Puerto Rico have not spiked significantly as a
result of the introduction of the passport rule. It has just been
regular business as usual as far as these two markets are
concerned.
What we are not doing?
We refuse to panic.
Though we do not wish to trivialize the impact that these two
developments may have on the industry our approach is to be
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even more creative in marketing the island. Last year was a
record year for Jamaica and our projections are for greater
things in 2007.
Our 2007 targets are for a 9.5 per cent increase in stopover
visitors and a 10 per cent increase during the 2007/2008 fiscal
year.
We are projecting that the number of cruise passenger visitors
will increase by 3.8 per cent this year and by 3 per cent in fiscal
year 2007/2008.
If these expectations are met, Jamaica stands to earn an
estimated US$2.4 from the industry, an increase of about 13 per
cent over earnings for 2006.
We will not be daunted from this goal. Last year we received
more than one million visitors from the US and our expectation
is for demand to continue apace from that market. Our goal is
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that CWC will springboard our foray into new markets such as
India and Ireland.
As far as the JTB is concerned, we will be striving as much as
possible to ensure that Jamaica surpasses the gains of last year
and to achieve a hat trick of 3 record-performing years in a row.
-end-
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