The New Zealand tourism market has returned to Hawaii after a two-year, COVID-19-related hiatus.

Hawaiian Airlines on the Fourth of July brought the first direct flight to Hawaii from New Zealand since March 2020. On Tuesday, Air New Zealand resumed direct service between New Zealand and Honolulu. Both airlines will operate three flights a week.

Darragh Walshe, New Zealand country manager for Hawaii Tourism Oceania, said the pre-pandemic flight schedule from New Zealand ranged from thrice weekly to daily service.

In 2019 before the pandemic, some 73,896 arrivals from New Zealand came to Hawaii.

“Obviously, we aren’t at that level yet, but the aim is to see the (continued increase) of service through next year,” said Walshe, who conducted a news trip for New Zealand journalists while in Honolulu last week.

The journalists spent time in Hawaii watching fireworks, visiting the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum, attending an evening reception and doing “voluntourism” activities at Kualoa Ranch and Gunstock Ranch as part of Hawaii Tourism Authority’s “Malama Hawaii,” a regenerative tourism concept that encourages visitors to make their trips more rewarding by giving back.

Walshe added that another goal of the news trip was to convey “a sense of the importance of respecting the people and place and being more mindful when you travel to the destination.”

“The feedback from the journalists has been excellent,” he said. “There is huge pent-up demand for travel because we’ve been locked down for so long. Now that we are fully open, people are desperate to travel again.”

New Zealand’s easing of its own COVID-19-related travel restrictions paved the way for New Zealanders to return to Hawaii. International tourism to New Zealand stopped altogether in early 2020 after the nation imposed some of the world’s toughest border restrictions. That allowed the nation of 5 million to eliminate several virus outbreaks and get vaccination rates up before the omicron variant swept through this year.

It wasn’t until March that New Zealand ended a requirement that incoming travelers isolate themselves for a week after arriving.

“You could travel out, but coming back was very difficult because you had to have this managed isolation period and it was hard to get a booking into that managed isolation,” Walshe said. “Once it was removed, that opened the doors for New Zealanders to travel again.”

Walshe said New Zealand also has eliminated its mandatory travel testing requirement.

“Coming back in, there’s not a requirement for testing, but travelers are given rapid antigen testing kits upon arrival just to help you if you do feel unwell,” he said.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been signaling New Zealand’s reopening with trips abroad, including recent trips to Singapore and Japan. In late May she also made her first trip to the U.S. since the pandemic began. The trade mission included support for export growth and the return of tourists post-COVID-19.

New Zealand in May began welcoming tourists back from the U.S., Canada, Britain, Japan and more than 50 other countries after dropping most of its own remaining pandemic border restrictions. It will allow tourists from China, India and other countries to come starting July 31.

Walshe said the resumption of direct air service from New Zealand to Hawaii has been well received so far.

“The airlines are really happy. The travel industry are reporting huge demand, huge booking numbers. The flight we were on was totally full. I don’t think that there was one available seat, and for the next few months those airline loads are looking extremely healthy.”

Walshe said the timing of the resumption in direct airline service between New Zealand and Hawaii is fortuitous as it precedes the first two-week school holiday period for New Zealanders as well as traditional holiday periods in October and December/January. Hawaii tourism also could capture additional momentum as Southeast Asia, Hawaii’s main competitive destination, has not fully reopened, he said.

New Zealand is a small but important part of the state’s tourism diversification strategy. Walshe said the market is prized for its lengthy nine-day average length of stay. Another positive aspect of New Zealand tourism to Hawaii is that 22% of New Zealand visitors also take a trip to a neighbor island during their stay, he said.

The back half of the year should contrast with the first five months of 2022, when there were only 1,527 visitors from New Zealand, compared with 26,005 visitors in the first five months of 2019.

Lack of airlift into Hawaii and New Zealand’s strict COVID-19-related travel regulations have inhibited the market since 2020. Walshe said airline capacity for the rest of the year is about 60% of what it was in 2019, and it is expected to keep growing.

“No doubt, come 2023 we will see that capacity starting to increase, and the aim will be for it to increase close to what it was in 2019,” he said.

Hawaiian Airlines had operated nonstop Auckland-­Honolulu service since March 2013, though it suspended its flights in March 2020 due to pandemic-­related government entry restrictions.

Russell Williss, country director of New Zealand at Hawaiian Airlines, said in a statement: “As Hawaii’s hometown carrier, we are de lighted to be the first airline to reconnect New Zealand with the Hawaiian Islands since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. We are seeing strong demand — with some travel periods surpassing 2019 levels — proving that Hawaii has remained a top-of-mind destination for New Zealand travelers.

“It’s been a joy to reunite with our Kiwi guests, and we look forward to serving them with the same warm Hawaiian hospitality and award-winning service they know, love and miss.”

So far, Australia has led Oceania’s return to Hawaii. Through the first five months of this year, there were 38,725 visitors from Australia, compared with 107,167 visitors in the first five months of 2019. Some 288,464 visitors from Australia came to Hawaii in 2019.

In December, Hawaiian Airlines relaunched its nonstop service between Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport and Honolulu’s Daniel K. Inouye International Airport.

Hawaiian, which suspended the route in March 2020 due to nationwide border closures imposed by the Australian government, will continue to operate its pre-pandemic Sydney schedule of five-times-weekly service with its 278-seat, wide-body Airbus A330 aircraft.

Jetstar and Qantas also fly direct from Australia to Hawaii.

Through the first five months of 2022, there were 220 scheduled flights and 65,777 seats from Australia and none from New Zealand.

Oceania has been in recovery mode since direct flights were introduced some seven months ago. Still, like New Zealand, it still has more ground to make up.

Through the first five months of 2019, there were 475 flights with 149,798 seats from Australia, and 175 flights and 50,886 seats from New Zealand.

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The Associated Press contributed to this story.