This week the Tasman Travel Bubble takes effect, allowing scheduled air travel to resume between Australia and New Zealand without the requirement for quarantine or vaccination. This is welcome news to residents of both countries, especially given that this is the largest international air travel market for each country. Since October 2020 there has been a one-way travel bubble, enabling New Zealanders to travel to some Australian States without the need to quarantine but they have still had to quarantine on their return. The latest move opens up two-way travel.
Of course, a key factor in making this possible has been the relatively low level of COVID-19 in both countries. Australia has daily case numbers down to around a dozen and New Zealand has had only one death in the past 6 months.
However, despite New Zealand being the largest market for outbound Australian travel, significant numbers of Aussie travellers used to head for other places too. In 2019, only 13% of all passengers…