The number of people crossing New Zealand’s border has climbed since two-way quarantine-free travel opened with Australia on April 19, 2021, Stats NZ has released.
There were 85,900 border crossings in April 2021, made up of 47,000 arrivals and 38,900 departures. Total border crossings were well up compared with the earlier months of 2021, which averaged 26,300 border crossings a month.
“Despite this increase, arrivals and departures are significantly lower than levels before COVID-19, when border crossings were as high as 1.2 million in April,” population indicators manager Tehseen Islam says.
Border crossings include all arrivals and departures, either for short-term trips or longer term, and by people living overseas or in New Zealand.
Australia leads travel
There were 70,000 border crossings to and from Australia in April 2021, made up of 39,900 arrivals and 30,200 departures.
“Trans-Tasman travel made up about 80 percent of all international travel in April 2021,” Tehseen says.
New Zealand citizens represented about 60 percent of arrivals from Australia and 67 percent of departures to Australia.
“With the introduction of quarantine-free travel between New Zealand and Australia, the main reason for people travelling was to visit family and friends,” Tehseen says
There were 27,700 visitor arrivals from Australia in April 2021 and just over three-quarters of those were visiting family and friends. There were 7700 New Zealand-resident travellers who arrived back from Australia in April 2021. About 70 per cent of these arrivals visited family and friends.
Travel increases with the Cook Islands
Provisional border crossing data up to June 6, 2021, show a small increase in travel with the Cook Islands each week since two-way quarantine-free travel opened on May 17, 2021. However, this is well below levels in the same period in 2019.
Net migration at levels last seen in 2013
Net migration was provisionally estimated at 6300 in the year ended April 2021 compared with 90,000 in the year ended April 2020, a drop of 83,700.
There was a net migration gain of 15,800 New Zealand citizens and a net migration loss of 9500 non-New Zealand citizens in the year ended April 2021.
