Kiwi travelers are torn between their travel trepidation and their desire to reconnect with friends and family, with 75% still feeling international travel is dangerous, according to Tower Insurance research.
Most plan to push through their anxiety and hesitation, however, with 70% still considering overseas travel in 2022.
Tower's online survey, conducted by Pureprofile, collected data from 1,020 people living in New Zealand over the age of 20, who have travelled overseas before. The survey was carried out between January 21 and 27, after the Government announced its staged approach to reopen New Zealand's border.
Brent Thomas, president of the Travel Agents' Association of New Zealand (TAANZ), said the overwhelming emotion travel agents are seeing, anecdotally, is actually excitement rather than fear or apprehension.
"While those who are vulnerable may choose to wait a bit longer before heading overseas, we are seeing a huge pent up demand to see the world and reconnect with friends and family.
"For example, House of Travel saw bookings for Queensland holidays, a popular destination for kiwis, reach almost 89% of the record sales achieved in 2019 over the last two weeks alone, said Thomas.
Covid-19 has added a myriad of 'what-ifs' to our travel considerations and travelers are more inclined to use a travel agent than book themselves due to the ever-changing nature of travel requirements, he said.
As our border re-opens to international tourists in a graduated series of steps starting with Australians from April 12, kiwis will also be heading in the other direction, keen for an overseas holiday two years in the making.
But it's a different world now: vaccination requirements add complexity, travelers still need to allow for their return dates being pushed back in the event of closing borders or contracting Covid-19, and travel insurance which includes Covid cover is more important than ever.
The Tower survey found kiwis ranked their top travel insurance priority as cover for overseas medical and incidental hospital expenses (92%), followed by accidental loss or damage on their trip (79%), unforeseen cancellation costs and loss of deposits (78%), travel disruptions or delays (72%) and epidemic and pandemic disease (57%).
Kiwis are also looking through the Covid lens when it comes to choosing the destination itself: the survey found 68% were looking for destinations with high vaccination rates, 62.2% said low Covid-19 case rates were important to them, and 45% said they were prioritising destinations that mandate people wearing masks in public.
“After two years of travelling within our borders, kiwis are now deciding international travel plans based on vaccination rates, mask wearing policies and local case numbers. While many are nervous, the pull of seeing loved one looks set to get kiwis offshore again," says Michelle James, managing director of Tower.
Thomas says the immediate challenge for the industry is waiting for the return of airlines to fly to New Zealand, increasing capacity.
"With the announcement that international visitors can resume visiting New Zealand sooner than expected, we hope to see changes in this space in the not-too-distant future."
12 Comments
Why would international travel be dangerous? Covid is last years news in the real world and Jacinda doesn't have the poll numbers to enact her brain farts on the borders anymore.
Currently in Australia and going further abroad in the coming months.
Travel insurance is another thing to add to the long list of things that you get price gouged for in New Zealand through.
It is dangerous because Jacinda will "brain fart". Any little thing will be enough to trigger another shut down, with her as savior of the nation again - her poll numbers will soar.
Winter is about to hit the northern hemisphere and there will be a scary new variant on BBC/CNN.
I've been to Australia and back for a couple of weeks in the last few weeks. I went when I thought I'd have to self-isolate for seven days upon my return, but that was scrapped while I was away. It was a pain getting the pre-departure test to leave, but the Australian system for lodging vaccine pass and results of pre-departure test on-line worked well, and reduced bureaucracy at the airports both sides. Biggest headache was fellow travellers who couldn't find their vaccine pass "It was on my phone screen yesterday" etc. Suggestion: take a paper copy too. Getting pre-departure test out of Australia was much easier - many more location options and cheaper. I was part of a pilot to automate vaccine pass & pre-departure test documentation when coming back, but most other travellers weren't, meaning coming back was really bureaucratic - long queues at Brisbane & Auckland airport checking extra documentation, compounded in both cases by staff shortages due to Omicron outbreaks.
Can anyone even afford to travel overseas post-Covid/-Ukraine? Besides million- and billionaires? What are airfares like now and will be post-Covid/-Ukraine?
Even businesses have learned to live with Zoom calls instead of flying hundreds of miles for a two-day face-to-face meeting.
Just have a look at the airfares out currently, they are pretty cheap even though the cost fuel and other restrictions are hurting airlines. They are only slightly up compared to pre covid but they will also only come down when more airlines start to operate back up in our part of the world and frequency of flights from June onwards.
Zoom will never replace business face to face meetings unless the meetings were never that important to start with.
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