New Zealand welcomed tourists from the U.S., Canada, Britain, Japan and more than 50 other countries for the first time in more than two years after dropping most of its remaining pandemic border restrictions.
Tourists will still need to be vaccinated and to test themselves for the virus before and after arriving.
Before the spread of Covid-19, more than 3 million tourists visited each year, accounting for 20 percent of New Zealand’s foreign income and more than 5 percent of the overall economy.
But international tourism stopped altogether in early 2020 after New Zealand imposed some of the world’s toughest border restrictions.
The border rules remained in place as the government at first pursued an elimination strategy and then tried to tightly control the spread of the virus. The spread of omicron and vaccinations of more than 80 percent of New Zealand’s 5 million population prompted the gradual easing of restrictions.
