Af­ter hav­ing their sec­tor shut down for more than 15 months, artistes will now be al­lowed to trav­el abroad to work and re­turn home with­out the in­def­i­nite wait­ing pe­ri­od for an ex­emp­tion.

This ac­cord­ing to Tourism Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell who was speak­ing at a Twit­ter Spaces meet­ing on Fri­day night.

The vir­tu­al meet­ing was host­ed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Pro­mot­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPA).

The as­so­ci­a­tion’s pres­i­dent, Jerome “Rome” Pre­cil­la said with lo­cal events shut down due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, artistes want to be al­lowed to trav­el out­side of the coun­try to work.

Pre­cil­la thanked the Tourism Min­istry for its vac­ci­na­tion dri­ve for artistes and for trav­el ex­emp­tions that would al­low them to leave and to re­turn to T&T.

The cri­te­ria for an ex­emp­tion to re­turn has been in place since the clo­sure of T&T’s bor­der in March 2020.

Thou­sands of T&T na­tion­als strand­ed abroad have had to ap­ply for an ex­emp­tion and wait, in most cas­es, months for that ex­emp­tion to be grant­ed.

But as Mitchell told the mem­bers of the vir­tu­al meet­ing, artistes will not have to wor­ry about that wait.

“The thorny is­sue of ex­emp­tions to re­turn was a mat­ter that we had to deal with—we made pro­pos­als to the Cab­i­net, Cab­i­net ac­cept­ed that the min­istry of Tourism, work­ing with the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty will treat with these ex­emp­tions so that artistes are able to go abroad work and com­fort­ably rest as­sured that they are able to re­turn, with­out hav­ing to wait for any in­def­i­nite pe­ri­od for an ex­emp­tion etc,” Mitchell said.

He said when artistes trav­el abroad to work, they can state their re­turn date on a form on the Tourism Min­istry’s web­site. That min­istry will then li­aise with the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to en­sure the ex­emp­tion is grant­ed.

“So no longer would the artiste go abroad, work, not know­ing how they are go­ing to get home, not hav­ing to pull a string or talk to some­body to talk to some­body, the artistes are able to sit very com­fort­ably, not have to pay for three, four weeks in ho­tel fees, but we will en­sure that the artistes re­ceive their ex­emp­tions in quick time and re­turn to the coun­try,” Mitchell said.

He said when the coun­try starts to come out of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, his min­istry may need to put in­cen­tives in place to mo­ti­vate cre­atives back in­to the sec­tor.