The Backpacker Youth and Adventure Travel Association is excited to see that the hard work and lobbying the association has put in with senior officials is finally paying off with the recent announcements surrounding easing of border restrictions, particularly those travelling on working holiday and international student visas.
Step one of the five-point plan begins on February 27, allowing for fully vaccinated New Zealanders to return home and self-isolate, skipping MIQ.
Step two, beginning at 11.59am on March 13, allows for the restart of our popular Working Holiday Visa scheme, which will see much needed fully vaccinated young people from across the world being able to experience Aotearoa without the requirements of MIQ.
New Zealand has long been popular with young people to live, work and play and the restart of our WHVs will not only be a much-needed boost to our tourism sector, but also provide much needed labour to our local businesses, particularly in the resort towns of Queenstown and Rotorua, where they have struggled over COVID to attract kiwis to work.
A successful WHV scheme is critical to the survival of our sector and the tourism industry.
BYATA thanks the support it has received from industry partners Tourism Industry Aotearoa and Tourism Export Council New Zealand in advocating for the speedy return of this fantastic scheme.
"We thank the government for recognising the importance of the Working Holiday Visa and by acting now to open up visa processing from March 14, 2022. With Australia announcing its plan to open in February we are very much in a battle for youth market share and need to work hard with our partners to be competitive in the youth travel space.
"We didn’t expect Australia to be open so quickly for double vaccinated travellers with limited self-isolation requirements which presents a problem for us as New Zealand is seen as a dual travel destination with Australia.
"We will continue to fight hard for an equal footing with Australia around our own self isolation requirements which is prohibitive to international visitors travelling to New Zealand, especially when compared with our neighbours over the ditch."
BYATA is also pleased to see the government announce that from April – up to 5000 international students will be enabled to experience learning programmes in our unique New Zealand environment.
BYATA supports the position of Education NZ that this is a good start towards recovery, however BYATA is happy that this process is beginning again, and we will no doubt see these numbers increase over time.
These recent border announcements are a testament to the hard work that the BYATA advocacy team has put in over the past two years. The Prime Minister in her comments to the media reflected the many benefits that youth travellers bring to New Zealand, echoing the messaging that BYATA has been putting forward over many months of lobbying.
BYATA is supportive of the calls from the wider tourism industry to end the requirements for self-isolation and MIQ completely, at the same time we also support a phased approach, to ensure that the health and wellbeing of the wider New Zealand public and that a sudden rush of visitors doesn’t overwhelm our health system.
The border announcements are welcome news in what has been a grim few years for tourism. BYATA and its members look forward to when we are able to extend our world famous manaakitanga once again to our global youth travel visitors.
