Flights bringing in tourists began landing at Auckland airport early on Monday morning, coming in direct from places including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Kuala Lumpur, and Singapore.
New Zealand has begun welcoming back tourists from more than 50 countries including Britain, the US, Canada and Japan for the first time in more than two years.
The tourist hotspot has finally dropped most of its remaining pandemic border restrictions after its strict policies allowed it to escape the worst of the virus - keeping cases and deaths relatively low compared to many other countries. Renowned for its breath-taking scenery and adventure tourism offerings such as bungy jumping and skiing,Tourism had previously accounted for around 20% of New Zealand's foreign income and more than 5% of the country's overall economy.But international tourism stopped altogether in early 2020 after New Zealand imposed some of the world's toughest border restrictions due to the global virus outbreak.
The border rules remained in place as Jacinda Ardern's government initially pursued an elimination strategy before enforcing measures to tightly control the spread of the virus.
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