Entry hassles may slow tourism

By Kelly Yamanouchi
Advertiser Staff Writer

A new program requiring foreigners — including Japanese — to be fingerprinted and photographed before entering the country will create longer waits at Hawai'i airports and could hurt the tourism industry, state tourism officials said.

"It will make it harder for international tourism, no question," said Rex Johnson, executive director of the Hawai'i Tourism Authority. "You're into this homeland security versus tourism type stuff, so all we can do is try to work as efficiently as possible."

About 13 million visitors from the 27 countries enter the United States each year. Last year, about 1.3 million Japanese visitors came to Hawai'i.

"You're going to have humongous waits of time in customs and immigration," said Marsha Wienert, Gov. Linda Lingle's tourism liaison, who said she is not in support of the new measure. "It's just not a pleasant experience. And if we are the Islands of aloha, then that first impression is not going to be a positive one,"

The Department of Homeland Security already digitally fingerprints and photographs every visitor holding a visa coming into the United States under the US-VISIT program, passed by Congress in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

By Sept. 30, the federal government will also digitally fingerprint and scan visitors from countries on the "visa waiver" program.

Tomoko Oniki, who was visiting Hawai'i from Fukuoka, Japan, yesterday, said most Japanese probably won't mind being fingerprinted.

But, "Japanese tourists don't like long lines," she said. "It's a bad thing."

Japanese tourists, who are the highest spending visitors to the Islands on a per-day basis, largely shunned Hawai'i following the Sept. 11 attacks. After working hard to bring back them back, tourism officials are worried the new rules could harm their efforts. Japanese may begin to see travel to Hawai'i as too difficult and choose to stay in Japan or go to other Asian nations.

"If I enter somewhere and it takes me two, three hours to go through customs and immigration, I'm going to think twice about going back," Wienert said.

Oniki said it is more convenient to travel to places like China than to Hawai'i. The "United States is very strict," she said.

The average time to fingerprint and photograph a traveler entering Hawai'i is 20 to 30 seconds, followed by about seven to eight seconds for a response, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

"Even if they say it's 15 or 20 seconds, for over 400 passengers on a jumbo 747 ... it's going to be a long line," said Ryokichi Tamaki, vice president of JALPAK International Hawaii Inc., a Japanese travel agent.

Most international flights come into Honolulu International Airport. Kona has one flight coming from Japan daily.

Wienert said there are not enough personnel and resources to process visitors "in a timely manner" under the new requirements.

Currently, the average length of time for international travelers to get from their plane to the curbside with their luggage is about 30 to 45 minutes, according to the state Department of Transportation.

But in some instances, the lines for international travelers at the airport on arrival are as long as two hours, according to Johnson.

State officials had been lobbying for a two-year delay of the requirements for digital fingerprinting and photographing of travelers from so-called visa waiver countries and requirements for biometric identification such as fingerprints on passports.

The departments of Homeland Security and State agreed to seek approval from Congress for the two-year extension of the deadline for passport requirements, but added that they would begin the expanded fingerprinting and photographing in the mean time.

Fingerprinting the visa-waiver travelers could have ramifications for Americans when they travel abroad. When the new measures began last winter, Brazil retaliated by requiring Americans visiting that country to be fingerprinted and photographed.

Still, there may be some advantage to the tourism industry in the additional procedures. They may give Japanese more of a feeling of safety, said Yumi Ozaki, manager of state contractor Hawaii Tourism Japan.

For Tamaki at JALPAK, the changes may require the tour operator to change itineraries, particularly for those who have connecting flights to neighbor islands after their arrival in Honolulu.

International travelers who have to wait in the lines are already complaining, he said.

When it comes to the image of Hawai'i to tourists, "it's a minus," Tamaki said.