Fully vaccinated persons travelling to the BVI will no longer have to wait hours or days for their travel authorization approval on the BVIGateway Portal following the decision to automate all fully vaccinated applicants.
This was confirmed by Premier Andrew Fahie during a recent media conference where he said that his government listened to the cries of the public and made a number of adjustments to the portal, making it more user friendly.
He said, “We met with the various stakeholders in the approval process including the developers on the entry portal and health authorities, on 23 August, 2021, and charted a way forward. The way forward involves making some changes to the BVIGateway Portal which we hope will improve the ease of use of the system for our residents and visitors.”
“We agreed to immediately remove the Custom and Immigration forms from the BVIGateway entry portal. This would reduce the amount of time persons spend completing their applications. We are progressing to automate the process for fully-vaccinated persons to get their approvals. The relevant officials have already taken steps for the modifications to be made to the portal. Under the previous system, all applications – for fully-vaccinated travelers, partially-vaccinated travelers and unvaccinated travelers – were processed manually by a team of persons from various Departments,” he explained.
Documents must first be uploaded correctly
The premier also warned that in order for the process to be approved automatically for fully vaccinated applicants, they must first upload all the necessary documentation and in the required manner.
He also said an additional layer of security will be in place that will select some fully vaccinated applicants and require them to verify their submitted documents.
“With the application process for fully-vaccinated persons being automated, fully-vaccinated persons will be able to get their Travel Authorization Certificate automatically once they have uploaded their documents correctly at the time of registration. The system will automatically generate the Travel Authorization Certificate instead of it being done manually as was the case in the past,” he said.
He added, “I must emphasize that although the system is automated for fully-vaccinated travellers, random review of approved applications will be made to further verify documentation. If any discrepancies are found, the approval will be immediately revoked.”
Unvaccinated and partially vaccinated
Premier Fahie who is the minister responsible for tourism also said that all applicants who are not fully vaccinated will have to continue to undergo the manual processing of their application for travel authorization approval.
He said, “Unvaccinated and partially-vaccinated persons will still be processed manually within an 8-hour window but these represent only 5 to 10% of the overall traffic through the Gateway. Therefore, once the unvaccinated or partially-vaccinated passenger has submitted all the required documents to complete their application, they should be able to get a faster turnaround on their application within eight hours.”
He continued, “Unvaccinated and partially-vaccinated persons must have a negative result for an approved RT PCR test that is no older than 5 days upon their arrival in the Virgin Islands. I urge all intended travelers to complete their applications in a timely manner.”
In addition, the leader of government business said that to further improve the user-friendliness of the BVIGateway Portal, a decision was made to implement several pop-up boxes, which will be integrated on the site for passengers to verify that they have the requisite documents.
He also warned all applicants that a failure to provide authentic documentation upon entry into the territory will result in penalties of up to $10,000.