To boost tourism, New Zealand has announced to open a quarantine-free travel arrangement with Australia.
An official release by Tourism New Zealand confirms that New Zealand and Australian governments have agreed on this quarantine-free travel arrangement, and it will come into effect from April 19.
With this travel bubble, Australians will be able to travel to New Zealand without undertaking managed isolation.
Who is eligible to travel?
New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern confirms that those who want to travel to or from New Zealand on a quarantine-free flight, must not have had a positive Covid-19 test result in the previous 14-day period and must not be awaiting the results of a Covid-19 test taken during that period.
When travellers from Australia decide to come to New Zealand, they will be making a booking on a green zone flight. This means that there will be no passengers on that flight who have come from anywhere but Australia in the last 14 days.
They will also be flown by the crew who have not flown on any high-risk routes for a set period of time.
Requirements
It will be mandatory for all passengers coming from Australia to fill a pre-departure health declaration with contact details.
In case if a passenger is found with cold or flu symptoms, then he won’t be able to travel.
Throughout the journey, passengers will be required to wear a mask and maintain social distancing. Travellers will also be asked to download and use the NZ COVID Tracer app while in New Zealand.
On Arrival
On arrival, travellers will be guided through the green zones at the airport – there will be no contact with those who are arriving from other parts of the world and going into managed isolation or quarantine.
There will be random temperature checks as well.
Respective airport authorities are also going to take a final call on some added arrival requirements soon.
Commenting on the news, René de Monchy, Tourism New Zealand’s Interim chief executive said:
“We expect that the first people to take up travel will be those wanting to reconnect with friends and family and our modelling shows that while visitor numbers aren’t anticipated to return to previous levels overnight we can expect to be back at 80 per cent by January 2022.
“Tourism New Zealand has been working hard to keep Aotearoa top of mind for Australian visitors over the last year. We will need to work even harder to convert this into bookings.”
Tourism New Zealand estimates that quarantine-free travel between Australia and New Zealand could bring in $1 billion to the economy by the end of the year.
