Australia to open borders to vaccinated tourists on February 21

Australia will reopen its borders to fully vaccinated tourists from February 21, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced, ending some of the world's strictest and longest-running pandemic travel restrictions."I''s almost two years since we took the decision to close the borders to Australia," Morrison said during a media briefing on Monday."If you're double vaccinated, we look forward to welcoming you back to Australia."Australia shut its borders in March 2020 to protect itself against a surging COVID-19 pandemic.With the rollout of its vaccination programme last year, Morrison's government has slowly relaxed the rules for Australians, long-term residents and students.Monday's decision will see almost all remaining caps lifted.The International Air Transport Association (IATA) said it "greatly welcomed" the move."The Asia Pacific region has been very cautious in its approach to border restrictions so far but in recent weeks, we have seen growing momentum towards relaxation of travel restrictions in the Philippines, Thailand, and to some extent New Zealand, "Philip Goh, IATA's Regional Vice President for Asia Pacific said in a statement."We urge other governments in the Asia Pacific to look at similarly further easing their border restrictions so as to enable aviation businesses to accelerate their much-needed recovery and to bring maximum benefits to their economies."Some 79 per cent of Australia"s population has received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, and the country abandoned its longstanding "COVID-zero" policy last year, amid a surge of cases driven by the Omicron variant.The past week has seen a slowdown in daily infections and hospital admissions, with Australia reporting just over 23,000 new cases on Monday.The figure marks the lowest daily case count this year and is well below the peak of 150,000 about a month ago.Approximately 2.4 million cases have been recorded since the first Omicron case was detected in Australia in November. Until then, Australia had counted about 200,000 cases.

The Australian Tourism Export Council, the peak industry body representing the nation's tourism export sector, said tourism operations were looking forward to rebuilding their markets.

"Australian tourism businesses will rejoice in the news that our borders will reopen to all international travellers," the council's managing director Peter Shelley said in a statement.

"It"s been a long, hard and desperate road for every tourism business across the country and we have lost many along the way, but this news will give those who have survived a clear target to work towards and a start point for the rebuilding of the industry," Shelley added.