Scenes like this: coming soon to an airport near you. Photo / Getty Images
Scenes like this: coming soon to an airport near you. Photo / Getty Images
OPINION
The return of quarantine-free travel also means the return of a cherished tradition: Airport reunions.
Is there anything quite like sitting in the arrivals lounge grasping a suitcase trolley, eyes flicking between the arrivals board and the gate, searching every passenger's face for that one you are waiting for,heart in your throat?
Then suddenly, the wait is over and they are in your arms. They're apologising for smelling like they just got off a plane, you're asking how the flight was.
It's a pure emotional scene that simply can't be replicated under Covid conditions, when visitors are bundled into a bus and hustled off for a two-week stay in a managed isolation facility with as little human contact as possible.
From April 19, airports around New Zealand and Australia will once again set the stage for this act in the human experience.
I have to imagine that many in the first wave of visitors will be propelling themselves over the ditch on a plane that could be fuelled by pure longing alone.
The people queuing to book the earliest tickets seem less likely to be tourists wanting a holiday and more likely to be people desperately missing what would normally be a regular visit.
I'm talking about separated lovers. Parents reuniting with kids who live with the ex. Grandparents beelining for grandchildren - some of whom may be new to the world.
Scenes like this: coming soon to an airport near you. Photo / Getty Images
Perhaps a Kiwi gal who married an Aussie guy and made a home in Australia knowing she could come back to Aotearoa and visit her family whenever she needed to - until she couldn't.
I know there are a few of those sorts of long-awaited trips being arranged in my family. Perhaps in yours, too.
Normally, these sorts of trips would involve the visitor either road-tripping around the country and couch-surfing at various relatives' abodes, or the visitor setting up camp in one home and having everyone come to them.
There might be a dinner out, maybe a brunch or two.
This time, how about doing our hurting tourism industry a solid and making an effort to do more with your guests?
Visit a local attraction and grab lunch after, take a day-trip to the next town over, get away somewhere else for the weekend.
If your guests are returning who are Kiwis perhaps less keen to do "touristy" stuff, ask them to consider that things have changed and many attractions have tailored their offering to Kiwi customers.
So if you have some disposable income and you're hosting an Aussie visitor, don't spend all day holed up in your house hugging them.
Get out and make some memories in the new New Zealand.
