Families hugged and cried tears of joy on Monday as they reunited at Tonga airport – the first arrivals in the Pacific nation after lifting Covid restrictions for the first time since the pandemic.
After Tonga closed its borders in March 2020, the government had tightly controlled a select list of people allowed to enter the kingdom – leaving over 3,000 Tongans stranded abroad.
But with restrictions lifted, Monday’s first group of tourists and returning Tongans – who will be greeted with colorful garlands and serenaded by a band at Fua’amotu International Airport – will not have to undergo quarantine.
The first plane to land was an Air New Zealand flight from Auckland with around 200 passengers.
“It’s good to be back,” said ‘Etu Palu, who was looking forward to seeing family again, with his mother Finau Palu saying it was “good to visit the motherland!”
Another passenger, Siosaia Filikitonga, said this was his first visit to Tonga in more than two years because of the pandemic.
“I’m happy and emotional. When Tonga announced the border was reopening, I booked to come,” Filikitonga told AFP.
Amid the reunions, Sione Moala Mafi, CEO of Tonga’s Tourism Ministry, said the visitors bring an important boost to the Pacific Kingdom’s economy.
“I’m so glad the border is open and making it easier to travel between Tonga and the outside world, especially New Zealand,” he said.
“I see that in addition to Tongans, many foreign visitors are also arriving by plane.”
More flights, one from New Zealand and one from Australia, are expected later this week, with planes from Fiji also due Tuesday and Saturday.
“We look forward to welcoming them,” added Moala Mafi.
– No Superyachts –
Despite its reopening, Tonga is taking a cautious phased approach by capping the number of incoming flights this month under a framework announced by the prime minister’s office on July 22.
They will check the number of flights and cruise ships for September and October, and all arriving passengers must be vaccinated and have negative COVID-19 tests before departure and three to five days after arrival.
Currently, the government’s National Emergency Management Committee has set the current level to “orange,” but Moala Mafi said it looks like “we’re making progress” going “green.”
“Orange now and it needs to be reviewed later this month,” he said.
So far, yachts and superyachts have not been included in the reopening of the border, much to the frustration of tourism operators, who say July, with its fantastic weather, is peak season in Tonga.
“I have 20 boats in Tahiti that want to come to Tonga. Big boats, I’m not talking about small yachts because they don’t let the yachts come back here and I don’t know why,” said David Hunt, owner of Super Yacht Services Tonga.
He was waiting at the airport to meet a yacht owner who hadn’t moored his yacht in Vava’u, one of Tonga’s islands, in over three years.
“Before the pandemic, we used an average of around 30 to 35 yachts a year between operators, but this year it could be many more,” he said.
“They have all these boats in the Pacific that they don’t want in Ukraine, in the Mediterranean.”
Moala Mafi said the government is still undecided on yachts in Tongan waters.
“We are still in the process of finalizing the cruise ship policy framework,” he said. “We’re not forgetting them, but they’re in the pipeline.”
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