Tighter border screening may turn away more than 2000 travellers a year
Friday, 9 August 2019
Immigration NZ says a new app to help vet travellers is working well just days after going live, despite misgivings from the tourism industry.
Less than eight weeks out from the introduction of a New Zealand electronic travel authority (ETA) on October 1, there is some nervousness about getting the message through to cruise passengers and air travellers from 60 visa waiver countries.
About 1.5 million people a year who currently do not need visitor visas will have to declare any criminal history before departure and without an ETA they will not be able to board flights or cruise ships coming here.
Immigration NZ general manager Stephen Dunstan said it estimate the new pre-arrival vetting could see 2000 to 3000 people turned away annually.
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'That's only a guess because we have not vetted these people prior.'
An ETA lasting for two years costs $12 online or $9 via the app, and the system will also collect the $35 a head international visitor levy (IVL) that came into force at the end of July.
Dunstan said more than 8000 requests had been processed so far, and only two had been refused entry and told they needed to apply for a visa.
Although travellers are warned to allow 72 hours for ETA processing, most were getting a response in five minutes.
Immigration NZ has launched a $5m global information campaign aimed at travellers, travel agents, airlines, and Kiwis likely to have visiting friends and family members needing ETAs.
Australian citizens are exempt, along with Kiwis travelling on New Zealand passports, holders of valid New Zealand visas, crew and passengers on non-cruise vessels, foreign cargo ship crews, guests of the Government, and visiting defence force personnel.
Immigration had hired about 40 extra contact centre and border operations staff to handle applications and deal with calls from airlines if passengers turned up without a ETA.
Dunstan said pre-arrival vetting would allow Imigration to run passenger names through watch lists and do some advance profiling, and the presence of a criminal conviction would not necessarily rule out entry to New Zealand.
'It's got to be something reasonably serious.'
Tourism Industry Aotearoa chief executive Chris Roberts said it was great to finally have the online application form and app available ahead of ETAs being compulsory.
But there was still a great deal of nervousness from airlines and inbound tour operators that not all travellers would get the information in time.
'Inevitably there will be people turning up to board flights to New Zealand from 1 October who will not have an ETA, and who will have to apply for one on the spot.
'When Canada introduced its ETA, this number was around 15 per cent of all travellers.
'Hopefully the current publicity campaign being carried out by Immigration NZ will be successful and our percentage will be much lower than that,' Roberts said.
Cruise New Zealand chief executive Kevin O'Sullivan said it had envisaged huge queues of passengers who were unaware of the new rules.
However, Immigration appeared to be 'ironing out' all the bugs and the true test of how well the system worked would become apparent once the cruise season was in full swing.