Immigration advising CITA, cruises of rules
A memo sent to the Florida Caribbean Cruise Association last month by Acting Director of Tourism Shomari Scott informed the group that permission had only been granted for cruise ship photographers to operate on shore within the Royal Watler port terminals.
Working in any other areas would be in violation of the Cayman Islands Immigration Law.
“Permission has not been granted to provide services beyond the port terminals for Royal Watler North and South terminals,” Mr. Scott wrote.
Chief Immigration Officer Linda Evans sent out a communication to the Cayman Islands Tourism Association on Friday to make the organisation aware of the situation.
“We will be enforcing the law with respect to photographers coming off the cruise ships and working without a work permit,” Ms Evans said.
Ms Evans said the issue of cruise ship photographers working outside the terminals was brought to government’s attention by a local photographers association, some members of which also offer their services to cruise passengers once they come ashore.
The Department of Tourism noted it had also received complaints from the local photographers and decided to correct the situation directly with the cruise association.
“Whilst this area of immigration/work permits issuance truly falls outside of the scope of [the tourism department],” DoT spokesperson Gina Matthews noted, “As the ministry … has an existing relations with the Florida Caribbean Cruise Association, we, in consultation with the Immigration Department, issued the letter to remind the cruise lines of the rules.”
Ms Evans said work permits are required to be maintained by all non-Caymanian employees in the Cayman Islands who do not have permanent residence. Similar permits are required of musicians, for instance, who travel to Cayman to perform in a show. Temporary seven-day permits are also issued to business executives who travel to the Islands for commerce purposes.
Cruise photographers are not issued work permits and don’t have trade and business licences as would be required by Cayman Islands Immigration Law, Mr. Scott said.
“We are made to understand there may have been situations in the past where [cruise ship] guests have paid for photography services with on Island photographers who advertise their services in your on board magazines and have had some challenges on a few occasions,” Mr. Scott said. “If this is the case, we apologise for any inconveniences created to both your [referring to cruise lines] and your guests.”
The Compass contacted the Florida Caribbean Cruise Association about the issue, but received no response by press time.
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And while we are on this commendable subject why doesn’t Immigration also check on the status of existing ‘freelance’ photographers working on-island, whose permits are for a DIFFERENT occupation to photography?
Also contracted wedding photographers who arrive on-island with the wedding party, without a permit? Are these not also breaking the employment law?
Another aspect of this story which appears to have been swept under the rug is that one of the cruise lines has stopped the island photo businesses from taking photos of the guests to Stingray City. This happened about 2 years ago and the cruise line refuses to budge on the issue. This has effectively shut down a number of photo businesses on the island. The cruise line told the boat/tour operators that they were not allowed to have photographers on the boats, this came with a fairly thinly veiled threat of losing the contracts with this particular line. It appears that the motive was to keep the 20 or so on the cruise ship and/or they wanted to find a way to get a cut of the business? It is fairly common to hear cruise customers say that they were told that they would not need money on shore. In fact I was told directly by one of the cruise employees in charge of shore excursions that they would like to stop the excursion boats from even selling t-shirts.
Back to photographers.
I agree 100% with Romany, and on some occasions these photographers come in and shoot projects that are endorsed or even arranged by the various government tourist boards and associations.
The local musicians have formed an association that guarantees, to a certain extent, their involvement in local media and performances perhaps it is time for the legitimate and legal photographers to do the same? I do not believe we should exclude all foreign or outside photographers from shooting here but they should be made to comply with immigration rules and regulations. Where there are qualified and capable photographers on island they should be able to compete fairly for the business that is available.
Boy, is this ever splitting hairs!
From this, we can assume that whenever any foreign head of state arrives on the island, any accompanying photographer, reporter, security detail person, etc., etc., etc., should not be allowed to do their job because of a lack of a work permit. What if a foreign athlete (many of whom are well paid for their performances these days — say Mr. Bolt from Jamaica)were to show up for the Cayman Athletic Games? By the above logic, he shouldn’t be allowed to participate. Barring him from the games would really go over BIG!
Don’t do something that you probably will regret eventually.
u9crew you seem surprised at the work permit system.It allows persons to work here and be paid for the work they carry out. So yes, if a foreign head of state’s entourage, or indeed Mr Bolt was to receive payment, this is classed as work and a permit would be required.
Sorry u9crew those activities you mention are exempt from requiring a permit, you can find the full list on the immigration website if you are interested.
I think you all have some big ones ….you cheerfully go to the US and do as you please there are laws in the US that prevent you all from working in the US and some of the other bloodsucking activities(free school medical housing) you all engauge in, what if the US laws were enforced? That would be a big problem wouldn’t it. Or would you cry about how we are picking on you. It was that 20k in vegas that caused this comment Just sayin