New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern yesterday said that her nation was “ready to welcome the world back” with most tourists allowed to return by May as the nation continues to ease COVID-19 curbs.
The announcement brought forward the date that tourists from the US, Canada, the UK and much of Europe can visit from the previously announced date of October.
International tourism used to account for about 20 percent of New Zealand’s foreign income and more than 5 percent of GDP, but when the COVID-19 pandemic began, New Zealand enacted some of the world’s strictest border controls and tourism evaporated.
The measures were initially credited with saving thousands of lives and allowed New Zealand to eliminate or contain several outbreaks, but with the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 now spreading throughout the country, the border restrictions have become largely irrelevant.
Ardern said the move would boost the economy.
“Closing our border was one of the first actions we took to stop COVID-19 over two years ago, and its reopening will spur our economic recovery throughout the remainder of the year,” she said.
Under the new timeline, tourists from Australia would be able to visit from April 12, while tourists from other visa-waiver countries can visit from May 1.
Travelers from non-waiver nations — including India and China — would need to wait longer, unless they already have valid visitor visas.
Tourists must be vaccinated against COVID-19 and test negative for the virus before leaving their home country and again after arriving in New Zealand.
“I know from visiting tourism operators and talking to their staff how tough these past two years have been,” Ardern said. “And not only because of the massive loss of tourism revenue, but because we lost something we derived so much of our identity from.”
Over the past couple of weeks, New Zealand has been reporting about 20,000 new COVID-19 cases each day, its biggest outbreak since the pandemic began.
Experts expect the Omicron outbreak to fade quickly from its peak, as it has in many other countries.
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