Australia ends travel ban for fully vaccinated travellers

Australia has unlocked its frontiers. After almost two years of near-total closure to tourists, business travellers and family visitors, most of the nation opened to fully vaccinated arrivals from overseas at midnight local time on Monday 21 February.

But with stringent conditions for travellers, and the entire state of Western Australia off limits until next month, will the British rush back to one of their favourite destinations?

The travel correspondent of The Independent, Simon Calder, was on the first foreign plane to land in the biggest city, Sydney, after the travel ban was lifted.

So what exactly has changed overnight?

In March 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic was taking hold around the world. Like almost every other nation, in a bid to protect its population Australia closed its frontiers to outsiders.

But the travel restrictions imposed by the federal government in Canberra, and state and territory governments, have been far tougher and longer lasting than in most countries.

Even returning citizens found it difficult to get back in – with a strict cap on the rate of repatriation, and mandatory quarantine either in hotels or at a former mining camp in the Northern Territory.

Australians were banned from leaving their own country, and still face restrictions moving between states. But three things combined to bring about the reopening to the world:

But international visitors still can’t go where they like: the largest state, Western Australia, is keeping closed for a further 12 days.

How many hurdles must you jump to reach Australia?

Getting the free “eVisitor” visa for Australia was simple – it took about seven minutes to complete and the same again to be issued.

But everything after that is complex. Even buying a ticket is a tricky business.Unless you’re on one of the rare and rather expensive direct flights on Qantas, you have to work out where you can change planes without triggering the need for extra tests – such as Singapore – or where connecting passengers are banned, as in Hong Kong.

Also, you run the risk that the rules may change suddenly before you go. Accordingly, I bought my ticket on the afternoon before I travelled.

Having booked a flight, your problems are only just beginning. Before travelling to the airport you must sort out the bureaucracy. You will need:

I turned up at Heathrow airport three hours ahead to ensure I had everything in order – and to give me a chance to get an extra Covid test in case there was a detail I had overlooked.

How was the journey – and the mood on board that first flight to Sydney?

Eleven thousand miles of flying in economy class with a two-hour flight connection along the way is never going to be a source of unremitting pleasure. Wearing a mask is mandatory at all the airports and on board the planes, except when you’re actually eating or drinking. That’s not too much of a pain on a two-hour hop to Spain, but for a 24-hour trip it becomes distinctly uncomfortable.

I travelled via Tokyo; normally I would have loved to stop over for a day or two in the Japanese capital, but that’s not currently a possibility. The transit was extremely efficient and straightforward: they called all the international connecting passengers off the plane first (people who were staying in Japan had to be processed first on the plane)

The flight down from Tokyo was fairly muted, perhaps because of those masks. I didn’t detect any other tourists: the announcement of Australia’s opening was made only two weeks ago, and organising a trip here is usually a fairly long-term process.

How warm was the welcome?

Extremely welcoming – with free koala cuddly toys and Vegemite for the first wave of arrivals – from Tokyo and Los Angeles.

Passport control and customs was extremely swift – about three minutes, including using one of the many automated kiosks.

The only “biosecurity” question was a cursory glimpse at my vaccination certificate.

Everyone needs a lateral flow test on arrival, and you must quarantine while you wait for the result – but clearly that doesn’t take long.

How much of a battle does Australia face to win back British visitors?

The tourism authorities have launched a multi-million-dollar campaign to try to entice British visitors back – including giant illuminated ads at Piccadilly Circus in London.

Undoubtedly people with family connections will want to get back to Australia. But the timing is awkward: it’s late summer here in Sydney.

Within a month the southern states of Victoria and Tasmania will be heading into autumn and winter. As a result, many tourists will want to postpone their journeys until the last couple of months of 2022.

Meanwhile locations such as the Caribbean, Mexico and South Africa have been attracting sun-starved British visitors, many other countries are opening up – including long-haul destinations such as Singapore and Vietnam.

What’s the story with Western Australia – and, for that matter, New Zealand?

Australia’s largest state has pursued an isolationist policy for many months – not merely keeping out overseas travellers, but also closing its frontiers to people from other states.

A reopening planned for other Australians earlier this month was postponed because of fears of the spread of the Omicron variant of coronavirus. The premier in the state capital, Perth, Mark McGowan, has vowed to try to get the vast majority of the adult population boosted as well as vaccinated before opening up to other Australians and the outside world.

That means direct Qantas flights from London Heathrow to Australia now land in the Northern Territory capital, Darwin, rather than Perth, and Western Australia is literally bypassed for another couple of weeks. It is finally set to allow tourists, family visitors and business travellers in from 3 March.

For people who would ideally make the most of a trip down under by including New Zealand: the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has tentatively said the country will open to travellers in July 2022, but with much local transmission of Omicron, it’s possible that the restrictions could be eased before then.