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WEISSMANN: THE POLITICS OF TRAVEL P. 12
THE NATIONAL NEWSPAPER OF THE TRAVEL INDUSTRY
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[ DELAY APPLIES TO LAND AND SEA, BUT NOT AIR ]
Congress pushes back deadline
for new passport requirements
By Michael Milligan the Western Hemisphere beginning Jan. 8.
The amendment, backed by Sens. Patrick
WASHINGTON — Congress last week threw Leahy (D-Vt.) and Ted Stevens (R-Alaska),
the country’s new passport rules into further is intended to allow the government time
confusion when it passed legislation delaying to perfect a proposed, simplified PASS card
some, but not all, deadlines for implement- — a sort of mini-passport that could be
ing the Western Hemi- used as an alternative to
sphere Travel Initiative. passports for land cross-
Originally, the new ings at the Canadian and
rules would have required Mexican borders.
all U.S. citizens traveling President Bush is
to Canada, Mexico and expected to sign the
the Caribbean to have a wmeasure.
passport to re-enter the Passage of the amend-country beginning Jan. 8. ment represented a sig-An amendment to WHTI Sen. Patrick Sen. Ted Stevens, nificant victory for the
passed on Sept. 29 delays Leahy, D-Vt. R-Alaska travel industry, which
implementation until has long contended that
June 1, 2009. the government would not by ready to en-
But the change applies only to trav- force the new passport requirement or to in-
elers who cross a U.S. border on land troduce the PASScardby Jan.1.
or via seaport. “They needed more time to implement
Air travelers will still need passports this,” said Rick Webster, vice president of
to travel to and from destinations in Continued on Page 78
THIRD OF A SEVEN-PART SERIES
How the Industr y
Really Works
TRAVEL+MONE Y
[ PERSONAL DATA ON RADIO CHIP ]
Concerns about privacy, security fail
to sour debut of e-passport in Denver
By Dan Luzadder U.S. passports, but they contain an RFID (
radio frequency identification) chip that contains digital information about the passport
holder. The information is read by a special
decoder.
DENVER — State Department officials, having issued just over 33,000 of the new electronic passports in the past six weeks, are
gearing up to help meet next year’s demand
for 12 million of the new travel documents.
The new passport has been controversial
E-passports look much like traditional
WORLD BEAT
because of opposition from some security
experts who question the strength of its encryption technologies and by civil libertarians who warn that it could encroach on the
privacy of citizens.
Ecuador fam St. Petersburg RailAgent adds
includes three strives to Rail Australia
nights in the attract more to products it
Galapagos. U.S. visitors. distributes.
While the government continues to issue
traditional passports, it expects to convert
to e-passports nationwide within 12 to 14
months.
P. 73 P. 8 P. 50
On Aug. 14, Colorado became the first
regional passport office to begin issuing the
new documents. Officials here say that, so
far, the changeover has gone flawlessly.
“We’ve had no problems of note,” said
Sherman Portell, assistant regional director
for the Colorado passport office.
The Denver facility opened a year ago last
month, winning the right to be the trial office
Continued on Page 79
T W PHO TOILLUS TRATION BY THOMAS R. LECHLEI TER; KE Y COUR TES Y OF THE S T. JAMES HO TEL, MON TREAL
HOTELS
The hotel-casino-resort category
ranked 22nd on Fortune’s list
of the nation’s top 50 industries last year.
But it’s a sector comprising myriad
revenue models.
BY MICHAEL MILLIGAN PAGE 21
