Queenstown (New Zealand) (AFP)
For more than a year, Queenstown, a famous tourist destination in New Zealand, has looked like a ghost town, but with the launch of the travel "bubble" with Australia on Monday, residents are hoping to revive the level of attendance before the pandemic.
Nestled in the midst of immense mountains, Queenstown prides itself on being "the world capital" of thrills.
Last year, the hordes of tourists who came to ski, bungee jumping, rafting and skydiving suddenly stopped arriving with the closure of the archipelago's international borders and attendance rates dropped by 70%.
Since then, the unemployment rate in this city on the South Island has reached new heights and many companies previously focused on tourism have gone out of business.
Queenstown, however, sees a glimmer of hope since Monday with the opening of the "bubble" between Australia and New Zealand.
Ann Lockhart, Executive Director of Destination Queenstown, believes this is a huge step forward.
Australians made up around 60% of the city's foreign tourists before the pandemic.
"It's a light at the end of the tunnel ... a good winter season will be a godsend", she underlines, the southern winter beginning at the end of June in the southern hemisphere.
According to her, ski reservations from Australia poured in from the announcement in early April of the launch of this "bubble".
So, Arvind Iyer, a Sydney resident, arrived on the first flight that landed in Queenstown as part of this corridor.
Doctor in a hospital, he is happy to be able to travel abroad after a trying year due to the pandemic.
Another Australian, Abhi Madras, feels that "it's like we had our wings cut off for 14 months and suddenly we found them".
This "bubble" can however be suspended at any time in the event of a Covid-19 epidemic in one of the two countries.
"We are a little worried, but we are prepared for it," said NZSki general manager Paul Anderson.
For the director general of the New Zealand tourist office in Australia, Andrew Waddel, the impact of this bubble is however much more than economic because New Zealanders, living in a distant country, have felt an immense feeling isolation during the pandemic.
© 2021 AFP