Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has given an update on a potential travel bubble with the Cook Islands.
Speaking at a post-Cabinet meeting address today, Ardern said Government officials will leave to visit the Pacific nation on Saturday.
Officials were due to travel there earlier in the year, but the August community cluster halted the visit.
Ardern said once both sides are happy, it would take a “couple of weeks” after that before a bubble is up and running.
"Keep in mind it's not just New Zealand saying we're ready to go," Ardern said.
She stated that both countries would also need to be happy with any maritime border arrangements before a travel bubble went ahead.
Last year, pre-Covid-19, tourism made up 85 per cent of the Cook Islands' GDP.
Jacinda Ardern announced today that officials are heading there on Saturday to help set things up.
Now, businesses are struggling to survive. Around 70 per cent of visitors were arriving from New Zealand.
Back at the start of August, Fletcher Melvin of the Cook Islands Chamber of Commerce said the country was ready for tourism immediately.
“There is no business, there is no income coming in apart from what the government is providing. There is nothing else to fall back to, we don’t have another sector, tourism is our whole GDP.”
He said the country was going through its reserves at a “rapid rate”.
“Without an economy it can only be a matter of time before we can’t pay for essential services, before the health system, the education system and just all of our services in general won’t be able to be maintained. That is always playing on our minds.
“We’re only a small country. In comparison to New Zealand, it's a small town that has no income.”
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