GEISHA KOW­LESSAR ALON­ZO

Tran­sit visa poli­cies rep­re­sent a com­plex in­ter­sec­tion of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, im­mi­gra­tion con­trol and in­ter­na­tion­al mo­bil­i­ty.

De­spite their lim­it­ed du­ra­tion and scope, these visas can sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­flu­ence trav­el be­hav­iour, air­line eco­nom­ics, geopo­lit­i­cal re­la­tion­ships, and pose sig­nif­i­cant hur­dles to seam­less in­ter­na­tion­al trav­el.

Last week’s rip­ple of con­fu­sion over Bermu­da’s visa pol­i­cy for T&T na­tion­als has set­tled in­to a clear­er, yet still per­haps chal­leng­ing re­al­i­ty.

While Bermu­da of­fi­cial­ly main­tains its visa-free en­try for T&T pass­port hold­ers, the up­dat­ed ad­vi­so­ry from the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs high­lights a crit­i­cal prac­ti­cal hur­dle: the ne­ces­si­ty of tran­sit visas through key hubs like the Unit­ed States, Cana­da or the Unit­ed King­dom.

How does this im­pact na­tion­als of T&T?

Econ­o­mist Dr Vaalmik­ki Ar­joon ex­plained to the Busi­ness Guardian this re­liance on mul­ti­ple con­nect­ing flights not on­ly high­lights lim­it­ed glob­al con­nec­tiv­i­ty but al­so dri­ves up di­rect and hid­den costs of trav­el, with visa fees and pro­ce­dures adding fur­ther fi­nan­cial and lo­gis­ti­cal bur­dens.

“The re­quire­ment to ob­tain visas when tran­sit­ing through the US (ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$185 plus an ad­di­tion­al US$250) ‘visa in­tegri­ty fee’ or the UK di­rect air­side tran­sit visa (about £39), is not on­ly an added cost of trav­el but al­so rep­re­sents ad­di­tion­al forex leak­age. The visa ap­pli­ca­tion process is not on­ly an added ad­min­is­tra­tive bur­den but al­so risks caus­ing trav­el de­lays and re­duces trav­el flex­i­bil­i­ty. Busi­ness trips must be planned well in ad­vance to ac­com­mo­date visa pro­cess­ing times, po­ten­tial­ly caus­ing firms to miss crit­i­cal op­por­tu­ni­ties if sud­den meet­ings or emer­gency trav­el are re­quired,” he ex­plained.

Ar­joon fur­ther said al­ter­na­tives to avoid cer­tain visa re­quire­ments, such as trav­el­ling to Latin Amer­i­ca via Pana­ma or rout­ing through Am­s­ter­dam to reach Asia or Africa, may mit­i­gate visa is­sues but of­ten come at the ex­pense of in­creased trav­el time, which in turn, caus­es pro­duc­tiv­i­ty loss­es and ad­di­tion­al lo­gis­ti­cal com­plex­i­ty.

This in­creased trav­el du­ra­tion, he added, al­so car­ries oth­er fi­nan­cial costs – each flight seg­ment car­ries its own air­fare, air­port charges, bag­gage fees, seat se­lec­tion costs etc., and mul­ti­plies the risk of miss­ing lug­gage or sched­ul­ing dis­rup­tions, which can fur­ther im­pact pro­duc­tiv­i­ty.

Con­se­quent­ly, there are many in­stances when in­di­rect routes be­come more ex­pen­sive than di­rect flights, if avail­able, which may re­duce the fi­nan­cial vi­a­bil­i­ty of some in­ter­na­tion­al trav­el and af­fect our con­nec­tiv­i­ty with glob­al mar­kets.

“In­deed, con­nec­tiv­i­ty chal­lenges through tran­sit visas and mul­ti­ple flight seg­ments can im­pact bi-lat­er­al trade and in­vest­ment. Ease of trav­el is crit­i­cal for es­tab­lish­ing trade re­la­tions and ne­go­ti­at­ing con­tracts through face-to-face meet­ings, at­tend­ing es­sen­tial in­dus­try con­fer­ences etc.

“When trav­el is cum­ber­some, it acts as a form of non-tar­iff bar­ri­er to trade and in­vest­ment. For in­stance, a Trinida­di­an busi­ness­man might re­con­sid­er at­tend­ing an es­sen­tial con­fer­ence or en­gag­ing in on-site ne­go­ti­a­tions in dis­tant mar­kets like South Africa if the jour­ney in­volves two ad­di­tion­al days in tran­sit,” Ar­joon said.

This con­nec­tiv­i­ty chal­lenge, he stressed, acts as a “dis­tance tax,” mak­ing in­ter­na­tion­al en­gage­ments less at­trac­tive, re­duc­ing the fre­quen­cy of busi­ness trav­el and weak­en­ing com­mer­cial ties.

This aligns with the grav­i­ty mod­el of in­ter­na­tion­al trade, which holds that stronger con­nec­tiv­i­ty be­tween coun­tries dri­ves high­er trade vol­umes.

For ex­am­ple, Ar­joon said a Trinida­di­an firm ex­port­ing its lo­cal­ly pro­duced processed food items, such as pep­per sauces or choco­lates to In­dia would or­di­nar­i­ly have to tran­sit through hubs like Lon­don or New York, in­cur­ring ex­tra air­fares, tax­es, air­port charges, lay­over ex­pens­es, and even tran­sit visa fees. By con­trast, he not­ed a di­rect flight from T&T to In­dia would elim­i­nate these ad­di­tion­al costs and bu­reau­crat­ic hur­dles, mak­ing the trip quick­er, cheap­er, and more pre­dictable.

“With those fric­tions re­moved, busi­ness­es would be more in­clined to pur­sue dis­tant mar­kets rather than re­strict­ing them­selves to ge­o­graph­i­cal­ly clos­er or bet­ter-con­nect­ed des­ti­na­tions. In this way, re­duc­ing ‘eco­nom­ic dis­tance’ through di­rect air links boosts bi­lat­er­al trade, just as the grav­i­ty mod­el pre­dicts,” Ar­joon said.

Fur­ther, he said hav­ing to take mul­ti­ple tran­sit flights may al­so lim­it po­ten­tial non-en­er­gy for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment (FDI) in­to T&T, by mak­ing the coun­try less ac­ces­si­ble to in­ter­na­tion­al in­vestors, par­tic­u­lar­ly from dis­tant or less-con­nect­ed re­gions.

Ar­joon ex­plained in­vestors gen­er­al­ly pre­fer lo­ca­tions where trav­el is straight­for­ward, af­ford­able, and quick, al­low­ing easy vis­its for due dili­gence, man­age­ment over­sight, ne­go­ti­a­tions, and op­er­a­tional co­or­di­na­tion.

“For in­stance, con­sid­er an in­vestor from Ger­many ex­plor­ing po­ten­tial op­por­tu­ni­ties in Trinidad’s man­u­fac­tur­ing or en­er­gy sec­tors: since there is no di­rect flight from Ger­many to Trinidad, the in­vestor would need mul­ti­ple con­nec­tions, like­ly via Lon­don, Am­s­ter­dam, or Mi­a­mi. These ad­di­tion­al hur­dles cre­ate a per­cep­tion of T&T as com­par­a­tive­ly in­con­ve­nient and ex­pen­sive, par­tic­u­lar­ly when com­pet­ing des­ti­na­tions, such as Ja­maica, may of­fer sim­pler en­try or more di­rect flight con­nec­tions. Con­se­quent­ly, in­vestors may shift their at­ten­tion and cap­i­tal to­ward coun­tries where con­nec­tiv­i­ty is smoother, ul­ti­mate­ly re­duc­ing our share of glob­al FDI in­flows and in­te­gra­tion in­to glob­al in­vest­ment net­works,” he said.

Ar­joon sug­gest­ed di­rect flights to T&T, es­pe­cial­ly from key Eu­ro­pean mar­kets, would not on­ly bol­ster busi­ness con­nec­tiv­i­ty but al­so dri­ve sig­nif­i­cant growth in tourism.

Di­anne Joseph, pres­i­dent of the T&T Coali­tion of Ser­vices In­dus­tries (TTC­SI), al­so agrees that Bermu­da’s new re­quire­ment came with a lev­el of con­cern from a cost per­spec­tive.

“This brings to light the cost of con­nec­tiv­i­ty from one coun­try to an­oth­er and the re­lat­ed cost for those who wish to pur­sue busi­ness out­side of T&T. Ju­ris­dic­tions such as the Unit­ed States, the Unit­ed King­dom, Cana­da and Ire­land al­so have these visa re­quire­ments. The UK re­quire­ments com­menced in March and Ire­land in May.

“Bermu­da is lo­cat­ed more on the side of the north­ern is­lands and to the best of my knowl­edge there are no di­rect flight to get there. This means that to do busi­ness, you must trav­el through the Unit­ed King­dom, the Unit­ed States or Toron­to. The es­ti­mat­ed cost for a busi­ness US visa is TT$1,295.00 with a pro­posed in­creased from Oc­to­ber which may take it to TT$3,045.00; UK stan­dard visa for busi­ness/tourism TT$1,246 and Toron­to TT$500.00 When these costs are tak­en in­to ac­count in the con­text of con­nect­ing with oth­er coun­tries, plus all oth­er ex­pens­es such as air­fare, ho­tel ac­com­mo­da­tion and per­son­al ex­pens­es, it may be­come bur­den­some for in­di­vid­u­als and those in who wish to pur­sue any form of ser­vices out­side of T&T,” Joseph stat­ed.

This she said prompts the ques­tion, “Will our ef­forts to take our ser­vices to in­ter­na­tion­al des­ti­na­tions be cur­tailed? If yes, we must start re-di­rect­ing our ef­forts in oth­er mar­kets. The im­pli­ca­tions that the visa des­ti­na­tions may soon face is a de­cline in tourism or trade,” adding that it’s left to be proven.

Joseph not­ed that while Bermu­da is con­sid­ered a tourism des­ti­na­tion, the change in leg­is­la­tion that calls for visa re­quire­ments may af­fect tourism from sev­er­al view­points.

For ex­am­ple, in the case of tourism and trav­el ser­vices, op­er­a­tors con­tin­ue fac­ing visa-re­lat­ed ad­min­is­tra­tive bur­dens for clients, and the po­ten­tial for can­cel­la­tions ex­ists, Joseph out­lined.

In the case of busi­ness and pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices, Joseph said pro­fes­sion­al trav­el still car­ries the same ex­tra lay­ers of visa ap­pli­ca­tions, wait­ing pe­ri­od and cost.

“Fi­nan­cial and sup­port ser­vices have a de­mand for visa as­sis­tance – es­pe­cial­ly to the US, Cana­da and UK and con­tin­ue to be a rel­e­vant val­ue add. Of par­tic­u­lar sig­nif­i­cance is the area of hos­pi­tal­i­ty and events – this area has been known for book­ing com­plex­i­ties, trav­el plan­ning de­lays and vet­ting of client visa sta­tus. Tak­en to­geth­er, these may not be a fi­nan­cial cost but a cost of time, ef­fort and mon­ey wast­ed, in cas­es of de­nial of a visa,” Joseph added.

Fur­ther, she said, or­gan­i­sa­tions that host pro­fes­sion­al busi­ness con­fer­ences may en­counter chal­lenges in the choice of des­ti­na­tions to host these events, adding many clients or part­ners may not be in pos­ses­sion of the re­quired visa or can­not af­ford the cost of the visas and thus de­nied the op­por­tu­ni­ty for the ex­ter­nal net­work­ing and ex­po­sure whether it is di­rect­ly re­lat­ed to their job or per­son­al de­vel­op­ment.

“Or­gan­i­sa­tions may have the choice of host­ing the rel­e­vant ser­vices in a non-visa des­ti­na­tion or to cater on­ly for those who has the fi­nances to ob­tain a visa and to take care of all oth­er trav­el, ac­com­mo­da­tion and oth­er ex­pens­es,” Joseph said, adding, this is crit­i­cal for the de­vel­op­ment and sus­tain­abil­i­ty of not on­ly the ser­vices sec­tor but our econ­o­my as a whole.

TTMA-No im­pact

The Busi­ness Guardian al­so reached out to CEO of the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) Ramesh Ramdeen, who be­lieves that the peo­ple go­ing to va­ca­tion in Bermu­da would like­ly face a chal­lenge and not the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, as most busi­ness own­ers al­ready pos­sess these visa re­quire­ments.

“Peo­ple might just have to di­vert now their va­ca­tion des­ti­na­tion from Bermu­da to a coun­try where they can get to with­out go­ing through the Unit­ed States, and or the UK. The re­al loss will come to the Gov­ern­ment of Bermu­da and the fam­i­lies in Bermu­da. So the loss for Bermu­da might be a gain to the rest of the Caribbean is­lands where peo­ple would now want to go on va­ca­tion and spend their mon­ey in­stead,” Ramdeen added.

One so­lu­tion he rec­om­mend­ed was greater des­ti­na­tion con­nec­tiv­i­ty in terms of air­lift.