"We will be accepting tourists from overseas ahead of schedule." This is the good news. Will there ever be a day when we Japanese tourists can enter the country safely?
What are the current entry restrictions?
New Zealand announced last year that it would gradually ease border control measures. Although it was temporarily postponed due to the spread of the Omicron strain, the first step (Step 1) was scheduled to start at 23:59 on February 27, and the fifth step (Step 5) was planned for October 2022. The latest report suggests that this plan will be brought forward to May.
Currently, we are in Step 2, following Step 1, where vaccinated New Zealanders (citizens or residents) can enter from Australia without quarantine. Vaccinated New Zealanders can enter the country without quarantine from any country in the world. In addition, people with special permission from the government, people with specialized skills, and people with an income five times the median income can also enter the country without quarantine if they have been vaccinated.
Entry from Japan, which is a visa exemption country, was scheduled to be possible from July onwards. However, in addition to having been vaccinated, self-isolation was required after entering New Zealand. If self-isolation is required for entry for tourism purposes, it is not realistic for tourism with limited number of days, so it was thought that entry would be permitted from "Step 5", which is scheduled to start in October, when entry from all over the world will be permitted. However, if entry is permitted in May, it will be almost five months earlier!
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The infection is spreading rapidly
Currently, the number of people infected with the new coronavirus in New Zealand is rapidly increasing. The number of cases began to increase especially in late February, and in March, there were days when the number of infected people exceeded 20,000 in a single day! On March 15, 21,616 people tested positive, and 960 people were hospitalized, the highest number ever. The number of deaths since the start of the spread of the infection has reached 117.
Looking only at the number of positive cases is worrying, but there are also optimistic factors, such as the high vaccination rate, including among those who have completed their third dose, which means that few people are becoming seriously ill, and the fact that Auckland, the only city that had cases up until the Delta strain and where the Omicron strain infection first began, has now peaked.
Public discontent with the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic has reached a peak. New Zealand, which relies heavily on tourism, has been in particular keen to see its economy recover by reopening to tourists from overseas.
Most of the people welcome foreign tourists.
In a poll, New Zealand's public broadcaster asked its respondents:
"Do you think New Zealand should now open up the entry of international tourists, but only if they test negative on arrival?"
he asked.
75% answered "yes," 20% answered "no," and 5% answered "I don't know" or did not answer. Incidentally, of those who answered "yes," 87% had an income of over 100,000 NZ dollars (about 8 million yen in Japanese yen), 86% were National Party supporters (the current government is the Labour Party), and 78% were men.
Of course, people involved in tourism are eager to welcome foreign tourists. In New Zealand, where winter is coming up, ski resorts are eager to attract tourists from the Northern Hemisphere, where the seasons are the opposite, summer. This is a serious problem not only for souvenir shops that depended on tourists for the majority of their sales, but also for the food and beverage industry.
Oakland Restaurant Association
At this rate, unless people actively use the airport, it will not last until October. It is not clear at all why the airport is not accepting foreign tourists until October.
He commented,
Although Prime Minister Ardern announced that overseas travelers will be able to enter the country from May 1, the information on the websites of the Immigration Bureau and other organizations has not yet been updated. Depending on the infection situation, the relaxation of border control measures may be postponed again, but will it be possible to enter the country safely this time?
