New Zealand’s tourism industry was the focus of today’s media briefing as the Government announced it would bring the border reopening dates forward.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says the change will coincide with the Australian school holidays and help accelerate the economic recovery from COVID-19.
“Closing our border was one of the first actions we took to stop COVID-19 two years ago,” the Prime Minister said.
“It did the job we needed. But now that we’re highly vaccinated and predicted to be off our Omicron peak, it’s now safe to open up.
“Reopening in time for the upcoming Australian school holidays will help spur our economic recovery in the short term and is good news for the winter ski season.”
Australians will be able to travel to New Zealand isolation-free from 11.59pm Tuesday 12 April. And from 11:59pm on Sunday 1 May, vaccinated travellers from visa-waiver countries such as the UK, US, Japan, Germany, Korea and Singapore, and those with valid visitor visas, will be able to arrive.
Around 1.5 million Australians visit New Zealand each year and make up 40 per cent of international arrivals.
“While we know it will take some time to see tourism scale up again, today’s announcement will be a welcome boost for our tourism operators who have done it harder than many over the last two years,” she added.
“An earlier reopening for tourism, and the air travel that brings, also increases capacity for our exports, helping to lower freight rates and the flow-on costs of goods that stems from that.
“We know that traveller numbers will be below pre-COVID levels for awhile and tourism globally will take time to rebound, but today’s announcement means were we’re ready to go, so haere mai welcome back.”
