Travel to Namibia, Slovenia, Tonga: Some Kiwis are still vacationing abroad
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Data is drawn from passenger arrival cards and what people have chosen as the main reason for traveling.
Travel data show that a small number of New Zealanders are still on holiday abroad.
In the nine weeks since July 23 – the day the Australian travel balloon ended – Stats NZ says there have been 180 holiday trips abroad where people have had to stay at MIQ on their way back.
This is despite constant advice not to travel with the MFAT.
FIRST UP / RNZ
Due to the closure of the Trans-Ottoman balloon and the New Zealand prison, Kiwis and Australians have been stranded on every side of Tasman for weeks as flights are grounded or canceled, pushing some to take extreme measures.
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Data is drawn from passenger arrival cards and what people have chosen as the main reason for traveling.
It excludes 8439 New Zealanders who took quarantine without a holiday to the Cook Islands, who also had a travel balloon until 17 August.
Another country in the South Pacific without a travel bubble – Tonga – apparently still managed to attract a handful of holidaymakers, with 108 trips considered “holidays / vacations”.
The second most popular destinations were the US – where there were 18 holidays – followed by France and Greece, where there were nine holidays each, and China, where there were six.
Others went further than paved with three holiday trips to Slovenia, three to Namibia and three to the Maldives.
The average length of leave was 15 days and in MIQ 14 days.
In the same nine weeks to September 30, people made 913 trips to visit family and friends and 351 business trips to places other than the Cook Islands.
Albany Travel House owner Tim Malone – who runs the Kiwis Coming Home Facebook page – said most people who book trips from the country have pretty serious reasons.
“Quite often their family is in trouble abroad – diagnosed with cancer or some incurable disease. Another common reason is new grandparents who will see a new grandson who is a few years old and has never met.
“Things like that become desperate after a while,” he said.
Malone said travel agencies are currently reluctant to specifically advertise holidays abroad because they are likely to eventually cancel the trip and have to chase a refund.
From the beginning of next year, international holidays will be a little more at hand, when most fully vaccinated passengers will be able to bypass managed isolation.
However, Malone said people’s confidence was shaking due to the short-lived nature of the Australian travel bubble, which resulted in thousands of canceled holidays.
“I would say that the number of Kiwis who booked a holiday and didn’t take it would actually exceed the number of people who took a holiday and took it,” he said.
The director of the travel agency Our World & Our Pacific, Rick Felderhof, said a few people booked a holiday abroad in 2022, but opted for safety.
Most waited until mid-2022, embarking on short-distance travel and closely monitoring the development of Covid-19 overseas.
“This new version has experienced a new query tank,” he said. “And that’s understandable because she’s obviously received a lot of media coverage and people are going into that uncertain phase waiting to see the consequences of the new version.
“But we expect interest to return fairly quickly.”
Malone suggested that anyone planning a holiday abroad should contact a travel agency that knows what is safe to book and how to get a refund if needed.