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Faster and cheaper travel between New Zealand and Australia has moved a lot closer following an encouraging meeting between the prime ministers of both countries.

Both prime ministers committed this week to making trans-Tasman travel “seamless” and setting up an expert task force to explore how to simplify border arrangements. The task force is due to report back by next June.

A new deal could see passengers clearing customs in their departure country and walking straight off the plane at the other end. It could be a SmartGate system, enabling quicker border security processing “so that before you get on a plane in either country, it’s already recognised that you’re okay to come in,” said Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

Tourism Industry Aotearoa (TIA) welcomed the commitment, with chief executive Rebecca Ingram saying that it was great news on the 40th anniversary of the Closer Economic Relations (CER) agreement between the two countries.

“The tourism industry on both sides of the Tasman is motivated to work with our governments to make this experience easier, something which would benefit business and holiday visitors,” Ingram said.

“We recognise that it’s not without complexity, and it’s important to balance security needs with desires to reduce barriers. However, technology is fast moving and can be utilised to make the experience of crossing the Tasman quicker and easier.”

The announcement marked not only the 40th anniversary of CER but also the 50th anniversary of the Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement.

Ingram said both countries “have much to benefit and celebrate together and today’s announcement is very much in the spirit of continuing to work in partnership.”

TIA is New Zealand tourism’s peak industry body, with about 1300 member businesses from across the industry, ranging from small owners/operators to large publicly listed tourism corporates and international hotel chains.

New Zealand and Australia are very closely linked and are usually the leading suppliers of visitors to each other.

For the entire calendar year 2022, as the travel industry recovered from the pandemic, New Zealand remained Australia’s largest visitor source country, accounting for 18.9% of visitors.

In the same year, New Zealand continued to be the leading destination country for Australians travelling overseas, accounting for 707,990 trips, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

The latest available ABS figures for May 2023 show that in that month, New Zealand contributed more visitors to Australia than the following two most significant visitor sources combined. Australia’s three leading visitor source countries in May were:

New Zealand (98,290 trips)
The USA (42,380)
India (41,230).

As a destination country from Australia, New Zealand came second in May, following Indonesia (always predominantly Bali).

The three leading destination countries residents returned from in May were:

Indonesia (107,810 trips)
New Zealand (72,990)
The USA (57,290).

The close travel industry links between Australia and New Zealand are illustrated by the fact that TravelManagers, Australia’s respected and highly awarded home-based travel advisor network, will hold its annual conference in Christchurch at the end of next month. TravelManagers, which operates in all Australian states, is a wholly owned subsidiary of House of Travel, Australasia’s largest independent travel company, founded in New Zealand in 1986.

House of Travel chief operating officer Brent Thomas told the New Zealand news outlet Stuff.co.nz yesterday that the move to ease trans-Tasman travel should encourage more people to travel between the countries and make things easier on the airports, which could mean cheaper travel.

“Where you’ve got it easier it’s cheaper, because maybe there isn’t the same cost to go through because you won’t be paying customs effectively on both sides to look at passports etc,” Thomas said.

“That will also help increase travel as well, because the prices should come down.”