Bryan: No end date for Travel Cayman approval requirement

Tourism Minister Kenneth Bryan has confirmed that there is no definite end date to the requirement to obtain Travel Cayman approval to travel here.

Bryan addressed the issue Wednesday night as he fielded questions from the public on the Cayman Compass weekly Facebook talkshow ‘The Resh Hour’.

While restrictions have been relaxed, there remains a need to keep some mechanisms in place as COVID-19 remains a factor globally, he said, adding that some countries have “peeled back” their positions on things like mandatory vaccinations.

However, for Cayman, he said, the government is taking a “conservative” approach just as the previous administration did.

“I don’t think we’ve peeled back enough layers yet to say the role of Travel Cayman is no longer needed. We know it’s a bit of a hassle because it’s the next step that [travellers] have to [take]. We think that eventually Travel Cayman will slowly move away when it is no longer needed. But we’re not quite there yet,” Bryan said.

Focus on cruise first

He said quarantine for unvaccinated individuals, including Caymanians and residents, will remain in place, as well as the requirements for travel certificates and proof of vaccination.

Changes to these rules, he said, will come.

However, he said, for the present, government discussions are focussed on safely managing cruise tourism.

“Right now, we want to get past cruise, see how the safety of that affects our national environment in respect to COVID,” Bryan said.

Then government can give more time to assessing both the local and international situation, he said, adding, “by then maybe we may not have any cases at all or nobody hospitalised”, as the number of inpatients has been decreasing.

Wesley Howell, chief officer for the Ministry of Border Control and Labour, speaking last month on ‘The Resh Hour’, said that by mid-February 56,435 travel certificates had been processed and over 47,344 people had visited Cayman since 20 Nov. 2021 when the borders opened.

He said Deputy Premier Chris Saunders, under whose responsibility Travel Cayman falls, does not intend to disband the team there.

“There’s intention to carry forward a smaller team of Travel Cayman folks assisting wherever there is a need… We never know when a new variant it’s going to pop up that we’ll have to reinstate some controls. It was difficult and painful to build Travel Cayman out of nothing and starting up an entire department to deal with the borders for almost two years now. So we want to ensure that we keep some of that capacity around,” he said.

However, Howell added that the ministry will utilise some of the team where they can, to be effective in helping other departments and in other areas to keep pace with demand.

Travel certificate scam a concern

Howell, in his 23 Feb. interview, also said that over 100 fake travel certificates were flagged and police are investigating the matter.

However, he said, coming out of that inquiry, the Customs and Border Control agency has instituted some changes when it comes to flights from what they consider high-risk destinations.

“We’re putting in some pre-boarding checks where, before they even get on board aircraft, we’re checking to make sure that we actually did issue those persons with travel documents. There’s certain security features built into the travel certificates that we issue; we can scan them and they come back from our system saying, ‘Yes, this is valid and granted. So the names, the date of birth and those things… match up,” he said.

Howell explained that there were individuals copying documents and faking certificates.

“We have the mechanism to track those and, through our collaboration with the airlines, we are now able to… have that check done before they board the aircraft,” he said.

He said Havana has been “probably the most problematic route” with well over 100 fake certificates found, prompting additional CBC controls.

“We have a very close working relationship between CBC, Cayman Airways and Travel Cayman. We have additional checks and balances that we do to ensure that we minimise persons that show up here with documents that are not authentic,” he said.

Police, he said, are empowered to deal with fake certificates under the regulations.