First cruise ship visits New Zealand after pandemic

Wednesday, August 24, 2022

The first cruise ship to visit New Zealand from the time when the pandemic started arrived on Friday.

It is an anticipated coming back to normality for New Zealand’s tourism industry and reorganizing the country’s tourism importance.

For curbing the spread of COVID-19 and ultimately eradicating it, New Zealand had shut down its borders in early 2020.

In May this year, the country permitted majority of tourists to enter by flights yet again.

However, it wasn’t until two weeks before that the limitations were eased, including those arriving by sea.

Hence, the cruise business is puzzled as to what took this much of time.

With the lifting of the prohibition, the Carnival Australia cruise ship Pacific Explorer came to Auckland, transporting 2,000 travelers and staff members on a 12-day round-trip from Sydney to Fiji.

New Zealand Minister of Tourism Stuart Nash said that it is a big deal because they can now go back to business routinely and reopen their borders.

Nash projected that it would take some time before the tourism industry goes back to the pre-pandemic standards, supporting 20% of New Zealand’s foreign income and more than 5% of GDP.

Nash said that many people in the tourism industry have worked diligently over the past two years.

However, they always had the attitude that it is of supreme importance to deliver a suitable health response, since they know that the stakes are high if they don’t.

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