It is reported that tens of thousands of people are waiting in line for visitors’ visas. Since the border opened in May this year, 300,000 travelers from various countries have obtained entry permits. But since New Zealand was fully opened to everyone on August 1, a total of 61,534 people have applied for visas. Of these, 26,332 people have signed the visa, and 515 people have been rejected. This means that there are 34,687 passengers waiting in line.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that most travelers coming to New Zealand are from visa-free countries. She said one of the reasons for the backlog was that when the border was open, a large number of people applied.
New Zealand Immigration Bureau accelerates processing of backlog of visitor visa applications
"The Immigration Bureau has said that the current review speed exceeds the application received, so these (backlog) numbers will be cleared faster."
Jacinda Ardern added that most of these visa applications are for visiting relatives and friends, and 20-25% are for travel.
Eve Lawrence, a member of the board of directors of the Youth and Adventure Tourism Association, said that the Immigration Bureau recommends that travelers who require a visa do not book a trip to New Zealand before making a visa.
"This season, we saw that the activity level of Queenstown reached 90-95% before the epidemic. We expect major airlines to reach similar capacity by the end of the year. 100,000 passengers entered the country in July, which is the largest scale we have seen in recent years, so the number is recovering rapidly."
Immigration Bureau's expenditure is 50% higher than when Labour took office in 2017, and there are 500 more people in the staff. Jacinda Ardern mentioned that there is a reason why the Immigration Bureau is short of staff and backlog.
"One of the reasons we have increased our staff and expanded our capacity is their current review volume. Imagine suddenly there is a new working vacation visa . Those applicants who are backlogged suddenly apply for entry at any time. These are repeated visas, not one-time. We also have the largest number of resident visa applications, which is unprecedented in New Zealand, because many of those in New Zealand during the epidemic, many of them meet the requirements for resident visas."
Jacinda Ardern also added that the number of people applying for visitor visas far exceeds expectations.
