After a harrowing two years of a COVID-19-enforced lockdown, New Zealand has finally reopened its borders to international tourists and visitors on Monday (May 2, 2022). Though New Zealand citizens could move within and outside the country from March 2022 onwards, this is the first time that the country has allowed visitors inside the country after March 2020 when it imposed what was widely considered to be one of the strictest lockdowns anywhere in the world.
Reuters reports that 43 international flights have been scheduled to touch down at or take off from Auckland International Airport, carrying around 9,000 people. Outside the Auckland airport, scenes resembled a festival. Media outlets such as the BBC spoke of tear-filled reunions between long-estranged members of several families. Maori performers sang songs at the gates, while popular and locally produced chocolate bars were given to the first batch of passengers who reached Auckland.
The opening up of borders comes as a welcome relief to the nation’s tourism sector which had stagnated for the better part of two years since March 2020. In the pre-pandemic times, tourism was one of the major drivers of the country’s economy—it contributed 20.1% of the foreign exchange earnings while also employing 8% of the country’s workforce. And, while New Zealand’s stringent policies of lockdown, rapid testing and tracing are the reason for its low count of COVID-19-related deaths—713 in a population of 5 million—there’s no denying that several industries and sectors did take a hit, leading to resentment and anger among a section of the workforce.
A portion of that anger will now dissipate, especially as people from more than 60 countries (this list, however, does not include India and China) can now visit New Zealand, as long as they are vaccinated and test negative for COVID-19. There are no mandates for isolation either. Tour operators now eagerly await a return to normalcy.
