As New Zealand prepares to open its borders to Australian travellers, the Cook Islands are also expecting to welcome Aussie tourists from next week.
Air New Zealand said it would be increasing flight capacity to Rarotonga and Jetstar has signalled that it too is getting ready to return to the
Cook Islands.
Although the Aussie carrier has said it won't be back in Raro until 2 June, it has announced a seat sale to try and fill some bookings ahead of the peak winter sun season.
With three flights a week out of Auckland, Jetstar is selling seats on their A320s from $149 one way.
However, until Jetstar returns Air New Zealand has a monopoly on tourists into the Islands.
A spokesperson for Air NZ said they would be adding an additional four flights a week to the Cook Islands from Monday, to cope with demand for leisure travel.
"With the April school holidays coming up lots of Kiwi families are booked to travel to catch some Rarotongan sun and we are moving from daily services to 10-11 times a week from 11 April. From the end of June to the end of July we are scheduling 12-14 flights a week to cater to Kiwis looking to escape the cold."
While Sydney waits for direct links to return, all Australian tourists will have to fly via New Zealand to get to the Cooks.
The additional pressure on routes is already being seen in reduced availability and increased flight prices. House of travel COO Brent Thomas told the Herald they had seen prices as high as $400 a seat.
"As those planes fill up, they're certainly not going to be shy in putting those prices up and what we need is competition, because ultimately competition will bring pricing back to what is more appropriate," he said.
"If we've only got one or two carriers, capacity gets filled quite quickly and they will yield margin on it."
While the Australian market is a smaller consideration for Rarotonga and the other islands, the lagoons of Aitutaki can't wait for Transtasman tourists to return.
The Rarotongan Beach Resort owner, Tata Crocombe told Cook Islands News that they hoped for direct flights to return soon.
"To the Cooks, it was about 20 per cent (of the market) but to Aitutaki, it's about 50 per cent, the Aussie market is very important to Aitutaki, more than Rarotonga."
Last month the Cook Islands' prime minister Mark Brown said that it would be following New Zealand's lead on reopening to Australia.
"We can expect that our own border entry requirements will also change to allow visitors from these countries on those dates as well," he said.
"We can now plan with certainty across our different stakeholders, and everyone can start looking forward to getting our businesses, our market vendors, our growers, our fishermen and others all back up and running to supply our markets as our country gets back into business."
