International tourists and business travellers began arriving in Australia with few restrictions today.
Australia closed its borders to tourists in March 2020 in a bid to reduce the local spread of Covid, but on Monday removed its final travel restrictions for fully vaccinated passengers.
Tearful British tourist Sue Witton hugged her adult son Simon Witton when he greeted her at Melbourne’s airport, the Associated Press reported.
“Seven hundred and twenty-four (days) apart and he’s my only son, and I’m alone, so this means the world to me,” she told reporters.
Travellers were greeted at Sydney’s airport by jubilant well-wishers waving toy koalas and favourite Australian foods including Tim Tams chocolate cookies and jars of Vegemite spread.
Federal Tourism Minister Dan Tehan was on hand to welcome the first arrivals on a Qantas flight from Los Angeles which landed at 6.20am local time.
“I think there’ll be a very strong rebound in our tourism market. Our wonderful experiences haven’t gone away,” Tehan said.
Danielle Vogl, who lives in Canberra, and her Florida-based partner Eric Lochner have been separated since October 2019 by the travel restrictions.
She said she burst into tears when she heard about the lifting of the restrictions, which will allow them to reunite in April.
“I actually woke him up to tell him, because I thought it was big enough news to do that,” Vogl told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
“He couldn’t believe it. He was like ‘Are you sure, is this true?’ and I’m like ‘Yes, it’s happening. This is over now; we can be together again’,” she added.
Lochner was not eligible for an exemption from the travel ban because the couple weren’t married or living together.
“It’s been a very long and very cruel process for us,” Vogl said.
Tourism Australia managing director Phillipa Harrison said she expected tourist numbers would take two years to rebound to pre-pandemic levels.
“This is a really great start,” Harrison said. “This is what the industry had been asking us for, you know, just give us our international guests back and we will take it from there.”
