The rise in the political temperature in Jamaica and the potentially devastating United States passport requirement for its citizens returning home, have caused jitters among members of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA).

JHTA President Horace Peterkin has called an emergency meeting for this Wednesday to discuss the two issues which his members view as potentially destructive to the hospitality industry.

“We are very and that would be very negative to the industry,” Peterkin said in an interview with the Observer.

Peterkin said hotels, other tourism interests and the country as a whole stood to lose millions of dollars if the election was rocked by violence.

“The meeting will discuss the concern of the sector that there could be a bloody and very negative period leading up to the next general elections, which must be avoided at all cost,” he said.

The emergency meeting was preceded by talks last Friday with Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, Tourism Minister Aloun Assamba and other top tourism officials, at which the concerns were raised.

Peterkin said the emergency meeting would be used to brief JHTA members on the outcome of those discussions.

In the interview, Peterkin joined the Caribbean Hotel Association (CHA) in lambasting Caribbean governments for not mounting a strong lobby against the US Homeland Department’s Western Hemisphere Initiative which gave cruise shipping companies an advantage over land-based hotels.

Americans as of January next year must have a passport to re-enter the US, if they travelled to the Caribbean, Canada, Mexico and Bermuda by air. If they travelled by Cruise ships, they have up till 2009 to get passports..

The CHA argued that the Caribbean lost out because of the far less aggressive and sustained lobbying effort by the Caribbean Governments than that of the Cruise sector.

“This decision by the US Congress,” Peterkin added, “has handed the cruise sector a two-year advantage over the Caribbean Hotel sector. For the potential US visitor without a passport, it is a straightforward dollars and cents decision. An adult passport cost US$97 and a child’s US$85, which means a family of four without a passport would now have to spend nearly US$400 additional to their vacation price to come to Jamaica.”

According to Peterkin, the JHTA members were gravely concerned about the projected 30 per cent fallout expected when the US Passport decree becomes a reality early next year.

“A 30 per cent fallout would have horrendous effects on the sector. With all the hotel rooms being built, we have to have a 15 per cent yearly increase to maintain the same level of business,” Peterkin said. “Hotels would have to close and some would have to cut rates to attract business, meaning massive lay-offs. It would have a devastating effect on the economy.”

He said some JHTA members believed that the playing field should be levelled by imposing the passport requirement for all air and sea visitors to Jamaica’s shores.

“This of course, would put us back in the position we were before the latest ruling by the US Congress, but could sour relations with the cruise sector and even create divisions among the Caricom grouping, even among those who stand to gain from this action!” Peterkin suggested.

But the JHTA president remained optimistic that it was not too late for action and urged the regional governments to pull out all the stops.

“We ask the prime minister in charge of Caricom matters to make a last ditch appeal to the US President or Secretary of State,” he said.