Press Release: BYATA – Working Holiday Visa work finally pays off!
09/02/2022
BYATA – Working Holiday Visa work finally pays off!
The Backpacker Youth and Adventure Travel Association
(BYATA) is excited to see that the hard work and lobbying the association has
put in with senior officials is finally paying off with the recent
announcements surrounding easing of border restrictions, particularly those
travelling on working holiday and international student visas.
Step 1 of the 5-point plan begins on February 27th
allowing for fully vaccinated New Zealanders to return home and self-isolate,
skipping MIQ.
Step 2, beginning at 11.59am
on March 13th allows for the restart of our popular Working Holiday
Visa (WHV) scheme, which will see much needed fully vaccinated young people
from across the world being able to experience Aotearoa without the
requirements of MIQ. New Zealand has long been popular with young people to
live, work and play and the restart of our WHVs will not only be a much-needed
boost to our tourism sector, but also provide much needed labour to our local
businesses, particularly in the resort towns of Queenstown and Rotorua, where
they have struggled over COVID to attract kiwis to work. A successful WHV
scheme is critical to the survival of our sector and the tourism industry.
BYATA thanks the support it has received from industry partners Tourism
Industry Aotearoa (TIA) and Tourism Export Council New Zealand (TECNZ) in
advocating for the speedy return of this fantastic scheme.
We thank the government for recognising the importance of the Working Holiday
Visa and by acting now to open up visa processing from 14 March 2022. With
Australia announcing its plan to open in February we are very much in a battle
for youth market share and need to work hard with our partners to be
competitive in the youth travel space.
We didn’t expect Australia to be open so quickly for double
vaccinated travellers with limited self-isolation requirements which presents a
problem for us as NZ is seen as a dual travel destination with Australia.
We will continue to fight hard for an equal footing with
Australia around our own self isolation requirements which is prohibitive to international
visitors travelling to NZ, especially when compared with our neighbours over
the ditch.
BYATA is also pleased to see the government announce that from April – up to
5,000 international students will be enabled to experience learning programmes
in our unique New Zealand environment. BYATA supports the position of Education
NZ that this is a good start towards recovery, however BYATA is happy that this
process is beginning again, and we will no doubt see these numbers increase
over time.
These recent border announcements are a testament to the hard work that the
BYATA advocacy team has put in over the past two years. The Prime Minister in
her comments to the media reflected the many benefits that youth travellers
bring to NZ, echoing the messaging that BYATA has been putting forward over
many months of lobbying.
BYATA is supportive
of the calls from the wider tourism industry to end the requirements for
self-isolation and MIQ completely, at the same time we also support a phased
approach, to ensure that the health and wellbeing of the wider New Zealand
public and that a sudden rush of visitors doesn’t overwhelm our health
system. The border announcements are
welcome news in what has been a grim few years for tourism. BYATA and its
members look forward to when we are able to extend our world famous
manaakitanga once again to our global youth travel visitors.
