The Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA) yesterday welcomed the changes made to the Caricom visa regime for World Cup Cricket visitors, but said the late implementation has already resulted in losses to some local hotels. In fact, the association projected that the full impact of the losses to the industry will be felt long after the tournament has ended and will run into several million US dollars.

“Some of our hotels have already had cancellations approaching US$200,000,” JHTA president Horace Peterkin said in a statement responding to Tourism Minister Aloun Assamba’s claim that the effects of the visa requirements will be insignificant or cost a mere US$10,000.

“The local tour representative companies which specialise in the non-traditional markets out of South America, Europe, Asia and the rest of the world also stand to lose a significant amount of their business during the Caricom visa regime and even beyond,” said Peterkin.

“Some of that business, which the sector has worked diligently to develop over the last 12 years, has been put on hold for the moment. Travellers from places like Switzerland, who have never needed a visa to visit most places in the world for the last 100 years, seem to have decided to switch their vacations to destinations that do not require a visa,” he added.

On Friday, Assamba had poured cold water on the JHTA’s claim that the Caricom visa requirement would result in a loss of business to the tourism sector.

She said that the visa requirement would affect only five per cent of visitors to the Caribbean and that this five per cent works out to, at most, 10,000 people who would earn the region approximately US$10,000.

But yesterday, the JHTA said that its “crude estimates” show that the visa regime could cost Jamaica alone several million US dollars.

“If we take the 2004 arrivals from the main affected markets for the same period, which are as follows:

. USA residents with foreign passports – 15,000;

. Central and South America – 3,200;

. Europe – 9,000; and

. other regions – 2,800, it amounts to a total of over 30,000 visitors,” said Peterkin.

“Let’s say we only lose the 10,000 of that Minister Assamba refers to – at a very conservative US$1,000 each – this will amount to US$10 million,” he added.

The JHTA had argued that Caricom should abandon the visa regime and had accused the regional grouping of sacrificing the Caribbean tourism industry “for 58 days of cricket” and doing so without consulting with the tourism ministers, the tourist boards or the embassies of the region.

If Caricom did not pull the measure, Jamaica should put its national interest first and go it alone, the JHTA suggested.

On Thursday, Caribbean tourism ministers met in Barbados to discuss the issue and agreed to issue free visas to visitors under 12 years old who are coming to the cricket tournament with their families.

They also recommended that the effective date of the Single Domestic Space be moved back to February 1 instead of January 15 and cut the visa processing time from three weeks to three to four days.

Yesterday, the JHTA said it welcomed these changes, including the establishment of a 24-hour Immigration Hotline, a 24-Hour Caricom Visa Hotline, and an online visa processing facility.

The association said it also accepted that it has to concede on the crucial matter of security. “We accept that we cannot challenge the international security community on intelligence they have, which necessitated the imposition of this temporary Caricom visa regime,” said Peterkin.

However, he said that after the tournament ends, the tourism sector will have a huge job “to repair the confidence and trust that have been shaken because of the late communication of this new regime to our tourism partners and the travelling public”.