New Zealand's tourism industry starts a long recovery after two brutal years, with borders opening tomorrow for vaccinated Australian visitors.
A tourism leader says the return of Australians - this country's biggest market pre-pandemic - would be a great start but the sector's overall recovery could take up to five years.
New Zealand will also face more intense competition from other countries to attract tourists.
''It's been a brutal couple of years but certainly the industry I think is elated with Australians starting to arrive back,'' said Tourism NZ chief executive Rene de Monchy.
He says the recovery of tourism will be bumpy.
''The restart of international tourism is going to take multiple years, I think we can. We haven't bothered to do a prediction because I think it's just too hard to do but everybody seems to be saying anywhere between three and five years, and I think that's probably right.''
Australian visitors are seen as particularly valuable as many drive to all regions and they tend to holiday here several times in their lives and during all seasons.
But de Monchy says many visitors from Australia initially would be visiting friends and relatives (VFR) rather than staying in hotels and paying for attractions that have been hard hit by closed borders. Most recently they have suffered from the steep drop in domestic tourism as Omicron swept the country.
Tourism NZ has begun a new promotion in Australia, building on some of the material rolled out for last year's short-lived transtasman bubble.
He said this country would be competing with Australian states for Aussie visitors and the challenge was persuading them that a trip across the Tasman is similar to a domestic trip.
''You can treat it like a domestic trip from a time and cost and distance perspective. So that's a really good opportunity for us.''
While the specialised tourism sector may not benefit fully initially from the Australians' return, other parts of the travel industry would. The still limited transtasman flights are heavily booked and de Monchy said this allows the aviation system to spring back to life.
''The really good news is that infrastructure in the airports all starts running off the VFR.''
Those VFR arrivals were being targeted with messages urging them to take a holiday they're here ''but the reality is it's going to take a little bit longer for holiday arrivals''.
Tourism NZ is the country's government-funded marketing agency with a budget of $110 million a year.
It was forced to switch promoting New Zealand to Kiwis when borders closed but kept marketing in key countries to keep desire to visit this country alive during the pandemic.
It can now add a booking message to that promotion.
From 11.59pm today vaccinated Australian citizens and permanent residents don't have to self-isolate or go through MIQ but have to have tested negative for Covid-19 and self-test on arrival.
De Monchy said the announcement came at just the right time and was designed to catch the Australian holidays, Easter and Anzac weekend.
''We've got multiple campaigns in the pipeline, because there's lots of different opportunities to entice our Australian mates back across the ditch."
When the removal of self-isolation requirements for long haul visitors from visa waiver countries was announced, there was an immediate spike in inquiries about New Zealand. They will be able to enter the country from May 2.
According to Google data, in the two weeks following the announcement of the border, international flight searches for New Zealand were up by 30 per cent and are up almost 90 per cent since February.
"So you can see that people respond quite quickly to the news. We've continued that brand building over time, but how do we now take that interest and nudge people along the decision funnel? It's all good to search for a flight but until you make the booking we've got to get our marketing in front of them and help push them further," de Monchy said.
Airlines, travel trade partners, tour operators, and destination marketing companies were all starting to see good interest for long haul markets particularly in the summer but some of them as early as July.
Visitors from Europe and North America were in Tourism NZ's sights, especially given the restored or expanding air links announced over the last month by Air NZ, Hawaiian Airlines and Air Canada.
Tourism NZ has a global partnership with National Geographic to highlight holistic experiences in this country and was running through social media channels aimed at the US and British markets.
The agency would next launch a global campaign to attract visitors for summer.
De Monchy said he was hoping the big Chinese market could return early next year but that would depend on how the country continued its response to Covid and was prepared to open its borders.
Tourism earned more than $17 billion a year in foreign exchange before the pandemic but that plunged to next to nothing following the closure of borders in March 2020.
He said there were new multiple challenges now facing New Zealand, which was always a difficult place to get to. It still has tougher border rules around Covid than other countries, notably Australia.
''There's high competition from other destinations. We're all about how do we attract high-quality visitors, not only people who have the financial means to come here, but also those in terms of times a year that they travel, are they interested in the types of experiences that we have to offer,'' he said.
''New Zealand is not a fly and flop destination. So we need to target people that are interested in touring travelling, getting close to nature, having local cultural experiences, all those things.''
But he was confident there was a strong desire to travel here.
''It's a highly competitive marketplace, which is why we continued to prime the audiences even when borders were closed. Now we can just target those audiences to go with full confidence.''
He said countries that had done away with pre-departure testing to enter them, such as Australia, would have an advantage.
''I think we're just going to have to ride through that wave for the coming months and as the world starts to get used to travelling. I've been saying in quite a few different forums that travel has definitely become harder than it used to be. The costs are probably higher, your testing requirements are different in different places,'' he said.
''But I'd argue that there's always been a battle for New Zealand. It has never been the easiest destination in the world to get to so people have had to be that extra little bit in love with the idea of New Zealand initially to make the trip.''
The opening of borders is a double-edged sword for tourism. Now Kiwis who were travelling in greater numbers in their own country during the last two years can fly overseas with fewer restrictions and places like the Gold Coast and Fiji were offering family packages and fly and flop bargains.
''We're up for the challenge. There are really great things to offer for New Zealanders in New Zealand. One is one of the things we've seen from our researchers as a consequence of Covid is people are talking about wanting more sort of meaningful travel purpose for travellers - less transactional.''
This approach fitted in with Tourism NZ's Tiaki initiative to help all travellers care for people, place and culture, for now and for future generations.
''It's really to remind visitors about also not only taking care of New Zealand, but also to take care of themselves.''
The Government has committed funding to the sector in an effort to support future plans.