Thinking of Flying to a Fiji holiday? Borders Open Sooner Than You Think!

For travel hopefuls sitting sequestered in Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the world, there’s good news when it comes to Fiji holidays. Yes, this island destination has announced that it will be opening its borders to travel and tourism from as soon as December! In line with Fiji reopening, the country’s airways has also launched a new in-flight video hyping the country and sustainable travel.

The bigger news was broached by none other than Tourism Fiji chief Brent Hill at a press conference recently. Pending an official announcement from the Fijian Government, opening of borders and starting of flights to Fiji is almost on time by…. November 11^th! Fijian PM Frank Bainimarama doubled down and said he was, “entirely confident in our ability to manage the risk associated with quarantine-free travel.”

Of course, this news has to be taken with a pinch of caution. We’ve learnt by now that almost every country announcing ‘borders open’ has shut them down a few weeks later because of a COVID outbreak. But they open again, and the cycle continues – optimistically and positively to a sort of permanent situation in the near future. The world is learning that it’s sadly impossible to stamp out COVID-19 and its hydra-headed variants. But treating cases as they pop up, vaccinating as fast as possible and keeping commerce and tourism open will be the ‘new normal’. And yes, we will adjust to that as well. Fiji leading the way is just the icing on the cake.

According to Fiji Airways, the Pacific nation is “on track to have the entire working population fully vaccinated by November,” with its borders set to reopen “before Christmas” and the airline resuming flights to Australia at that time.

Fiji Reopening: The Fine Print

• Travellers must be fully/double-vaccinated with either AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson options. Additionally, the Fiji government will update its list of approved vaccines and publish them.
• Everyone over 12 must have a clean PCR test taken within 72 hours of boarding their flight to Fiji.
• Before booking your flight, your travel agent will help confirm a three-night stay at a careFiji Commitment-registered resort/hotel with your flight.
• The Winning Stroke: No quarantine required! After landing and reaching the resort, a mandatory rapid Covid test needs to be performed within 48 hours of the holiday. During this period, travellers need to stay within the resort property.
• Fiji holidaymakers need to download the careFIJI app and keep it on and active for the duration of the holiday.

But the above are nothing more than what most other travel-dependent nations are installing as good practice guides. Fiji’s green list would include Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, Korea, Singapore and parts of the United States (source).

Good news for Australian and Kiwi travellers

This is great news for all, as Fiji is slowly opening doors to all countries. But this news holds great relief to two of its biggest markets, Australia and New Zealand. With more than half of Australia’s adult population hitting full vaccination status, curfews being lifted gingerly and domestic borders being opened, it is well on its way to drop Twitter-assigned ‘Forbidden Kingdom’ prefix before its name. Amidst spikes and dips in daily new infections; Canberra, Melbourne, New South Wales, Brisbane, and other cities are doggedly moving towards pledged relaxations in curfews. More importantly, Australia is seeing a steady decline in cases.

So, what is it going to be? As all the above countries race to vaccinate their populations, we feel that the only thing left unsaid is that booking a Fiji holiday at such a short notice would be a mite… costly. But our South Pacific Specialists can help with Fiji reopening holiday packages. Check out our new holiday deals with friendly booking, delay and cancellation features – just what’s needed for the modern, new-age travel today.

Need to see what are resorts and destinations doing to combat COVID and boost happy holidays? Check out our section on COVID-19 and South Pacific travel, other blogs on Fiji if you want to do some travel research and so on. We’re so excited to see travel back on the menu and we bet you are too!