The tourism-dependent Pacific country will reopen with almost no restrictions in July, though there are concerns about lack of airline deals.
Vanuatu, one of the last Covid hermit nations, is set to open up to international travel, but there are concerns the country is not ready to restart tourism, with a lack of deals with foreign airlines posing a significant problem.
From 1 July, international tourists will be able to return to Vanuatu, a country of 300,000 people three hours from Australia, which has had some of the toughest border restrictions in the world through the pandemic.
Vanuatu closed its borders to visitors in March 2020, only allowing a capped number of residents and visa holders to return throughout this period, with strict quarantine requirements.
But from next month, the rules will relax almost completely, there will be no quarantine or arrival caps, with travellers – vaccinated or unvaccinated – allowed to enter the country if they can show a certified negative rapid antigen test taken 24 hours before arrival.
The tourism-dependent country is keen to get visitors back, particularly as nearby Pacific nations, including Fiji and Samoa, reopen to tourists. Before the pandemic, tourism made up around 40% of GDP. In April 2020, just a few months into the pandemic, the Vanuatu government estimated that 70% of tourism jobs had been lost due to Covid-19. Last year, the Vanuatu government estimated the combined economic cost of Covid-19 and Cyclone Harold at around $850m.
However, there have been concerns that the tourism industry is not ready for travel to resume, with a particular concern about the lack of deals with foreign airlines for travel into Vanuatu.
Currently travel to Vanuatu is only possible through Air Vanuatu, the country’s beleaguered national carrier, which only has two aircraft for its international operations. There are concerns that if anything were to happen to the heavily indebted national airline, Vanuatu would become a hermit nation once again.