In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, all industries became acutely aware of stringent new travel regulations immediately put into place worldwide and the resulting negative impact on international travel. But what is much lesser known is that new regulations in the past few years have also affected businesses—including attractions—that rely on travel.
Of all the new rules, none has had as significant an impact as the latest regulations imposed by the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI). Although many countries are cooperating in enforcing it, WHTI is actually a directive initiated by the United States government under the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 and has been implemented in phases since its passage. The main objective of WHTI is to eliminate the very relaxed “open border” atmosphere between the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Caribbean nations that, in the past, allowed “verbal declarations” of citizenship and minimal identification. It is actually not law in Canada or the other Western nations affected by it.
The latest WHTI regulations, which require a passport or other official documentation to cross the border between the United States, Canada, and Mexico, or to fly or cruise to Caribbean nations, were delayed for more than a year while the affected parties scrambled to prepare for them. But they went into full effect June 1, 2009, and their impact has been felt the most on the Canada/U.S. border.
“When WHTI hit on June 1, we saw a 70 percent decrease in bridge traffic that day,” says Joel Noden, chairman of the Niagara Parks Commission (www.niagaraparks.com). “Just to give you an idea of what’s happened, in the first 10 months of 2004 U.S. visitation to Ontario numbered 23 million. The first 10 months of 2009, it was 5 million—that’s a staggering difference. Seventy percent of our visitation used to be from the U.S., and now it’s 29 percent. It’s the day-trip consumer that’s been affected.”
Canadian Attractions Feel the WHTI Pinch
The Niagara Falls area is a good case study for the effect of the regulations because the Falls lie right on the U.S./Canada border. Ripley Entertainment (www.ripleys.com) operates several attractions on the Canada side of the Falls, and Tim Parker, general manager of those locations, has seen the effect. “It’s had an impact on our business … our attendance is down due to the overall decline in U.S. visitation,” he says. “At times during the past year, that drop of U.S. attendance was 30 percent. This number fluctuates quite a bit, and the weekends are still pretty good. We need to get the overnight and day-trippers back from the U.S.”
Ripley partners with Great Wolf Resorts on the Great Wolf Lodge at Niagara Falls and had planned to build a 120,000-square-foot state-of-the-art aquarium adjacent to the lodge, but put the project on hold in 2007 as concerns over WHTI grew. In January, Ripley announced it was pursuing a plan to build an aquarium at the site of the CN Tower in Toronto and that the Great Wolf Lodge aquarium would remain on hold.
Since visitors from the United States would still face the same border crossing requirements to reach Toronto as Niagara Falls, why is the former a better option than the latter?
“Just the volume of people in the Greater Toronto area makes the Toronto site more attractive for development than Niagara Falls,” says Tim O’Brien, vice president of communications for Ripley (and FUNWORLD editor at large). “The proposed site of Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada is close to the city’s convention center, Rogers Centre, and the Air Canada Centre. If out-of-market tourism is down, local and regional visitation is more than enough to make this new world-class aquarium a success.”
Marineland Canada in Niagara Falls, Ontario (www.marinelandcanada.com), has also seen a definitive drop-off in U.S. tourists resulting from WHTI. “Normally, about 30 percent of our visitors are from the greater Buffalo, New York, area and that’s fallen to 6 percent,” reports John Holer, the park’s owner. “I hear the same thing from people in Buffalo, that there are few Canadians coming across. So we’ve abandoned all advertising in the United States and put it into Ontario instead.”
Some U.S. Attractions Affected, Too
On the U.S. side, attractions apparently haven’t been as greatly impacted by the regulations, mainly because Canada’s population is less than one-ninth that of the United States (33 million vs. 305 million, respectively), and thus, crossborder traffic is comparatively smaller. But Cassandra Okon, public relations manager for Darien Lake Theme Park in Darien, New York (www.godarienlake.com), says, “We have noticed a difference with border policies and it’s affected us— we’ve seen a change in our Canadian numbers.”
 Maria Burridge is general manager of Know How Tours (www.knowhowtours.com), which operates bus tours out of Buffalo, including excursions into Canada. She says her company’s business is off about 5 percent but believes it’s due to the economy as much as the new regulations. Her operation took a proactive approach: “We educated the general public on how they can get passports and enhanced driver’s licenses, and we have links on our web site.” Burridge notes one thing mitigating the losses is that travelers who’ve opted not to book tours into Canada have simply chosen other Know How Tours.
The situation on the Mexico/U.S. border is a bit different. First, Mexican visitors to the United States have been required to show a passport or Border Crossing Card for decades, so WHTI doesn’t affect them. But U.S. visitors to Mexico are affected by the new regulations.
The border crossing in the area of Tijuana and San Diego gets tremendous numbers of U.S. citizens doing day crossings, but Gerardo Salazar, co-owner of El Vergel Waterpark in Tijuana (www.albercaselvergel.com), says his business has not been greatly impacted. “I heard from our visitors that the [border] officers don’t ask for passports all the time, and also, [many] visitors took action right away—most people have their passports,” he says. “Radio and TV stations made people very aware of [the new regulations]. We were expecting less visitors, but WHTI didn’t really affect us because people took it seriously.”
Effect Minimal on Other Locations
The days of departing the United States on a Caribbean cruise with only a driver’s license for identification are over—passports or other WHTI-approved documents are now required. But the cruise industry has reportedly done a good job of preparing its customers for WHTI.
As a result, Linda Osborne, general manager of UNEXSO (www.unexso), which offers a variety of dolphin swims and diving experiences in Freeport, Bahamas, says her attraction hasn’t experienced a noticeable negative impact from the new regulations. “Honestly, I don’t see that it’s hurt us that much,” she tells FUNWORLD. “The bulk of our business is cruise ship business, and who knows, if the cruise industry had not increased the number of cruises and dropped their rates so much recently, maybe it would have affected us.”
It’s also harder to judge the impact of new travel regulations on international tourist destinations such as Orlando because passports/visas have always been required for air travelers. However, in some countries, those documents have been made more difficult to obtain.
“Pre-9/11 in Brazil, they could go to an equivalent of a post office and apply for a U.S. visa in any community,” says Mark Brisson, marketing manager of Fun Spot Action Park in Orlando (www.funspot.tutengraphics.com) and Fun Spot USA in Kissimmee, Florida (www.funspotusa.tutengraphics. com). “After 9/11, they had to go to a U.S. consulate office, of which there were only about six in a country of 180 million people. But in the summer of 2009, that process was actually made easier.”
Brisson says Fun Spot’s Orlando location experienced a definitive impact from Sept. 11: “Our Orlando park is 70 percent locals and 30 percent tourists, whereas pre-9/11, those numbers would probably have been flipped. The international visitor numbers have not returned to the record high of 2000.”
As expected, European parks report no definitive drop in tourists as a result of WHTI because passports have always been a requirement for U.S. travelers.
What Attractions Are Doing About the New Regulations
Parks and attractions have reacted to the new regulations by educating their guests. “We always ask the guests where they are from when calling our attractions,” says Ripley’s Parker. “If they are U.S. visitors, we try to tell them how easy it is to get over the border, the best time to come, and if they are uncertain of the paperwork they need, we direct them to the web site with that information. It’s educational for us to tell people so they don’t get discouraged [by] all the negative media, because in reality, the difficulties aren’t really as great as most people believe.”
 The Niagara Parks Commission notes they’ve been working with the staffs of AAA offices to train them on the new regulations, and Know How Tours officials say they continually stress how easy it is for travelers to secure the necessary documentation.
Brian Martin, public affairs director for the Orlando Convention and Visitors Bureau, tells FUNWORLD what parks and attractions can do to educate travelers: “Providing clear, concise information on the process the U.S. has in place for the international traveling public is a must for all destinations and attractions. Plus, many international travelers face even more hurdles in their own countries due to lack of Internet access and overloaded visa screening systems. Helping travelers understand the time frame for obtaining the proper paperwork is important to ensure the customer has a positive experience.”
The challenge of preventing terrorism while allowing tourists the freedom of travel is a big one. “Obstacles mean fewer international visitors,” Brisson observes. “Finding the right balance between being a great host without exposing ourselves to unnecessary risk is something we simply must do in order for international tourism to survive.”
Contact News Editor Keith Miller at kmiller@IAAPA.org.
The Nuts and Bolts of WHTI
 Effective June 1, 2009, provisions of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) went into full effect, requiring specific forms of approved documentation to cross the land borders between the United States, Canada, and Mexico, and to visit Caribbean island nations by sea (passports were already required for air travel to these locations). Below are some important details of these provisions:
- U.S., Canadian, and Mexican travelers going by land across U.S./Canada or U.S./Mexico border must have a passport (cost: $100), passport card (cost: $45), or other approved WHTI document. Exception: U.S. and Canadian citizens under age 16 can have a birth certificate. All air travelers, regardless of age, must have a passport.
- Acceptable WHTI documents include a passport, passport card, Enhanced Driver’s License (EHT), or Trusted Traveler Program cards, such as NEXUS. The new wallet- size U.S. Passport Card can be used to enter the United States from Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, and the Caribbean at land border crossings or sea ports-of-entry and is less expensive than a passport booklet; it cannot be used for international air travel.
- Closed-loop cruises—those beginning and ending in the same U.S. port—will require proof of citizenship, but not a passport. However, if the cruise docks at a non-U.S. port, a passport may be required depending upon that country’s/island’s policies.
- As always, passports are not required for U.S. citizens traveling to, or returning directly from, Hawaii or a U.S. territory, including Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Swains Island, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
- If U.S. citizens don’t possess proper documentation, they will experience an in-depth process of determining their status. They will eventually be permitted entry if their citizen status can be established because, says Bonnie Arellano, public affairs officer for the U.S. Border and Customs, the bottom line is entry can’t be denied to U.S. citizens if their status can be determined, even if they don’t possess the proper documentation.
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