Caleb Tiller
, 703-684-0836, ext. 138
Courtney Leigh Beisel
, 703-684-0836, ext. 133
Alexandria, VA (April 27, 2006) -- The National Business Travel Association (NBTA) expressed the views of its members on the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) in letters to the leadership of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, which today holds a hearing on WHTI. As the corporate travel industry’s voice in Washington, NBTA encouraged changes to WHTI designed to facilitate travel and the conduct of commerce throughout the western hemisphere.
WHTI is a program that will require all U.S. citizens, Canadians, citizens of the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda, and citizens of Mexico to have a passport or other accepted secure document to enter and re-enter the U.S. by January 1, 2008. Currently, U.S. citizens, Canadians and some citizens of other countries in the Western Hemisphere are not required to present a passport to enter or re-enter the U.S. when traveling within the western hemisphere.
NBTA’s argued the following:
- The multiple WHTI requirement deadlines should be unified to avoid confusion that would hurt commerce.
- The unified deadline should be late enough to allow for an effective campaign informing the public about the program and its requirements.
- A document that will be accepted under WHTI as an alternative to the passport must be developed and available before the requirements go into effect.
The letters read,
“WHTI has fostered confusion amongst the business travel community by creating separate effective dates for air and sea border crossings on the one hand and land border crossings on the other. That confusion will have a negative impact on the conduct of commerce business between companies located and operating in the United States and throughout the western hemisphere. A unified deadline would greatly reduce confusion and protect important economic activity.
Further, the federal government has not sufficiently educated the public about the upcoming deadlines, so most Americans have no working knowledge of the elements of the new regulations which will go into effect at the end of this year. To ensure U.S. businesses can continue to work effectively with partners throughout the western hemisphere, a new, unified deadline should be set at a later date to enable a communications campaign to inform the public.
Also significant to the business travel community is the lack of an effective alternative to the passport which would qualify as an acceptable travel document under WHTI requirements. With less than 23 percent of the American public and 40 percent of the Canadian public currently possessing passports, it is clear that a broadly and cheaply available, secure alternative document is vital to the conduct of international commerce…The WHTI deadlines should be unified and extended to enable the successful development and rollout of the [recently announced] PASS program, including a communications campaign and provision of the cards to qualified applicants, prior to the launch of new border crossing requirements.”
The National Business Travel Association is the source for critical information on the business travel industry. For more than 35 years, NBTA has dedicated itself to the professional development of its members through advocacy, education and training, and networking opportunities. NBTA represents over 2,700 corporate and government travel managers and travel service providers, who collectively manage and direct more than $170 billion of expenditures within the business travel industry. For more on NBTA, visit www.nbta.org.
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