TESTIMONY OF

THE TRAVEL BUSINESS ROUNDTABLE
AND
THE TRAVEL INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA

FOR THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
SUBCOMMITTEE ON WESTERN HEMISPHERE, PEACE CORPS AND NARCOTICS AFFAIRS

ON

IMPLEMENTING THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE TRAVEL INITIATIVE: A PROGRESS REPORT

APRIL 27, 2006

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The Travel Business Roundtable (TBR) and the Travel Industry Association of America (TIA) wish to submit this testimony for the record as part of the April 27 hearing on the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI). A brief description of each organization and our membership and/or leadership is attached to this submission.

Chairman Coleman and Ranking Member Dodd, we thank you for your leadership and foresight in holding this follow-up hearing on a subject of great importance to the U.S. travel and tourism industry – implementation of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, or WHTI.

On behalf of the $650 billion U.S. travel industry and its more than 7 million direct employees, TBR and TIA wish to offer our views on this issue, which is critically important to all of our members as the U.S. government continues to grapple with finding the right balance between homeland security and facilitation of legitimate travel and trade.

While we wholeheartedly support the intent of Section 7209 of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which aims to have U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers examining fewer and more secure travel documents, the WHTI plan still raises many questions and concerns.

First of all, we continue to believe the two-tiered deadline approach that would cover all inbound air and sea travel to the United States on January 1, 2007 may well create significant difficulties for travelers returning to the U.S. following a cruise vacation.

We have consistently advocated for a single, unified deadline in order to prevent even more confusion on the part of the travelers who may have difficulty remembering various deadlines for different types of travel resulting in arrival at different ports-of-entry. Greater levels of confusion and misunderstanding can easily lead to cancelled trips and less travel spending in the U.S. While we would not expect there to be any impact on air travel since nearly all airlines are already requiring passengers to present passports for Western Hemisphere travel into the United States, we remain concerned about the impact on cruise travel since many of those travelers are not currently required to carry passports.

Regarding the statutory deadline of January 1, 2008 passed by Congress, we are now distressed that with only 15 months before this date is reached the federal government is unprepared to implement the WHTI in a fashion that will both enhance our nation’s border security and continue to facilitate legitimate cross-border travel and trade.

To that end, on March 16, 2006, TBR and TIA sent a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff expressing our concern about their departments’ ability to meet the January 1, 2008 deadline in a satisfactory fashion. To date, we have not received a response to this letter. We respectfully ask that this letter [see attachment] be included as part of the hearing record.

As the U.S. travel industry, our primary focus is on inbound Canadian travel since Canada represents our largest international travel market with over 14 million visitors in 2005. With the knowledge that less than 40 percent of the Canadian population currently holds a passport, we are unsure how many business and leisure trips into the U.S. might now be cancelled due to a lack of the proper documentation, confusion over the rules, or an unwelcoming view of our nation. The third and final reason cited will continue to rise in importance since current research demonstrates very clearly the sagging image of the U.S. around the world and the perception that we are no longer as welcoming a nation as we once were.

We are also concerned about the impact on American travel to Canada, Mexico and Caribbean. We believe it is critical for Americans to travel abroad and experience other cultures and peoples. It is only through these encounters and exchanges that the U.S. can better understand and appreciate its neighbors in the Western Hemisphere. Strong economic, social and cultural ties with Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and beyond are just as important to our nation’s homeland security as high-tech documents and stepped-up border enforcement.

While we commend the very diligent and professional work of the leadership at the Departments of State and Homeland Security on this very serious matter, we also believe what is needed is, at times, some “out of the box” thinking in order to meet the dual mandate of securing America’s borders while facilitating legitimate travel and trade.

The current joint trusted traveler program between Canada and the U.S., NEXUS, has provided valuable lessons about how a jointly developed program can enhance secure travel moving in both directions across the border. We have hoped ever since the passage of WHTI that the U.S. and Canadian governments would develop a similar program to meet this new requirement, but to date, the U.S. has neither worked with the Canadians nor provided sufficient policy guidance or technical specifications to allow the Canadian government or provinces to develop travel documents that will work at U.S. border facilities.

In our filing of comments last fall, in our letters to Congress, and various speeches given to industry groups and legislative staff members, TBR and TIA have offered numerous options that we believe will provide for a more workable solution with regard to the implementation of WHTI. These suggestions are also endorsed by several dozen other national travel and tourism organizations who are also very concerned about WHTI.

The travel and tourism industry’s constructive suggestions include:

• Creating a single, unified deadline for WHTI of January 1, 2008. This is the only deadline Congress required via Section 7209 of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004;
• Exercising broad discretion in determining which documents other than passports will be accepted;
• Developing, in cooperation with the Canadian government, low-cost alternative travel documents for both Americans and Canadians;
• Creating price incentives for the broader distribution of U.S. passports;
• Working with state and provincial governments on the possible use of enhanced driver’s licenses for cross-border travel and/or the use of state issuance processes to enroll applicants and deliver federal identification documents to the public;
• Working with the private sector on an aggressive public outreach campaign; and
• Conducting a full cost-benefit analysis and economic impact study in order to determine how WHTI will affect the U.S. travel industry.

As you know, DOS and DHS have announced the development of the PASS card as a means to provide a lower-cost, easier-to-obtain and easier-to-carry version of a passport. We believe PASS is the right model for meeting the WHTI requirement. The ability of DOS to issue a procurement, conduct testing, mount a public education campaign, and issue the cards to the millions of necessary recipients in the next 20 months, however, is highly suspect, even if the procurement and testing processes go smoothly.

As the limited time to meet the WHTI deadline has slipped away without a full compliance plan in place, TBR, TIA and a host of other travel and business organizations have wrestled with the question of whether or not the January 1, 2008 deadline should be extended in order to more properly implement some of the ideas listed above. While WHTI needs to commence at some certain date, it is more important to “get it right” than to simply begin on a date where the impact on legitimate cross-border travel and trade could be severe.

On April 19, 2006, TBR and TIA sent letters to Senators Ted Stevens and Patrick Leahy in support of their amendment to extend the WHTI deadline by 17 months, from January 1, 2008 to June 1, 2009. We are also aware of and commend other Senators for amendments and legislation that offer constructive solutions to avoid any disruption of cross-border travel and trade due to WHTI.

Ultimately what will be needed is an extension of the January 1, 2008 deadline and some very specific guidance regarding pricing of passports or alternative travel documents, as well as the need for the U.S. to work in a bilateral fashion with Canada on the development of such alternative travel documents.

Thank you, again, Chairman Coleman and Ranking Member Dodd, for your leadership in holding this follow-up hearing and for your understanding that we must endeavor to protect our borders while at the same time strive to increase travel with our key trade partners in the Western Hemisphere. We look forward to continuing to work with this subcommittee and Senators interested in a common-sense solution to a very critical issue for the U.S. travel industry and the nation as a whole.

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