After more than two years of lockdown, New Zealand welcomed thousands of travelers from dozens of countries for the first time on Monday.

The country will allow entry to fully vaccinated visa-exempt citizens from more than 60 countries from this date.

Till Fähnders

Political correspondent for Southeast Asia.

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Since Germany is also one of these countries, vaccinated Germans only have to present a negative corona test (PCR or supervised rapid test) before departure and test themselves with a rapid test on the first and fifth day after arrival.

Welcome with dances and chocolate bars

Emotional scenes unfolded at Auckland Airport on Monday as scores of New Zealanders hugged friends and relatives they had not seen for more than two years.

They were greeted with the dances and songs of a traditional Maori group and chocolate bars.

"It's so good to see, we've been waiting for this for a long time," Tourism Minister Stuart Nash told Radio New Zealand.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told a meeting of New Zealand-US businesspeople that her country was in a six-month process of returning "to the world stage".

New Zealand is again "Open for Business".

Your country is proud of what it has achieved.

Thanks to the cautious pandemic policy, New Zealand has the lowest number of deaths and hospitalizations as a result of Covid-19 among all OECD countries.

New Zealand's economy even grew during the pandemic.

Unemployment, on the other hand, has fallen: "Proof that what is good for people's health is also good for the economy," said Ardern.

The government had been following a strict zero-Covid strategy until a few months ago.

Since then, however, it has been implementing its plan for a gradual opening faster than originally planned.

Tourism companies are seeing a growing interest in travel to New Zealand.

However, they anticipate that it will take at least another year or two for visitor numbers to return to pre-pandemic levels.

Currently, most flight bookings came from New Zealanders flying abroad or returning from their trips.