Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says visas are being processed quicker than they're being received despite there being a massive backlog of tourists waiting to get into the country.
Newshub revealed on Sunday tens of thousands of people are stuck in the queue waiting for visitor visas.
New Zealand allows tourists from certain countries like the United Kingdom and the United States to travel here without a visa. Almost 300,000 tourists from countries have been granted entry since the borders opened to them in May. But since August 1 - the grand reopening of New Zealand's borders to everyone else - 61,534 have applied for visas. Of these, only 26,332 have been approved and 515 declined. It means 34,687 tourists are waiting for weeks in the queue.
Ardern told AM on Monday the "vast majority" of tourists who come to New Zealand are from visa-waiver countries but added one reason why there is a backlog is there was a "big rush" when the borders reopened.
"Right at the beginning of when we reopened, there was a big rush of people who applied and we have some that are still waiting to be processed," Ardern told AM co-host Ryan Bridge.
"Immigration New Zealand have said though they are now in a position where they are processing more than they're receiving so those numbers that will be cleared will speed up."
Ardern added the majority of those visa applications are to visit family and friends rather than the 20-25 percent who want to come and be a tourist.
Backpacker, Youth and Adventure Tourism Association board member Eve Lawrence told AM earlier on Monday Immigration New Zealand is recommending tourists who need a visa not book to come to New Zealand until they have their visa.
"We're starting to see cancellations coming through now because people are panicking about their visas. So is having a reasonable impact on businesses," Lawrence told AM.
"I guess the thing that is really grinding is that they're advising people on the immigration website not to book their travel until they get their visa. So unless they're going to start increasing those processing times, then you just tell people not to book."
When asked if it worries her that tourists will give up and not book to come to New Zealand, Ardern continued to stress the "vast majority" are not identifying themselves as a tourist.
"The vast majority are already able to come and don't require a visa and we're seeing those return in good numbers," Ardern told AM.
"We saw roughly 90-95 percent levels of activity in Queenstown this season than we saw pre-COVID. We expect airlines to get back up fairly close to capacity coming into New Zealand by the end of the year. We had 100,000 tourists coming in July, the largest number we've had, as you can imagine, in years, so those numbers are ramping back up."
Ardern pointed out tourists coming from China will apply for their visas in advance but won't travel immediately because of the country's zero-COVID policy.
Immigration NZ is spending 50 percent more than it was when Labour came into power in 2017 and has an extra 500 staff.
Ardern said there are a number of reasons why Immigration NZ is so stretched and there is massive a backlog.
"One of the reasons we've had to put in those extra staff and make sure we have that extra capacity is just because of the amount of processing they're doing because imagine all at once, you've got new working holiday visas, you've got a backlog of people then who will suddenly apply to come into the country at any given time because these are repeat visas, it's often not just a one-off visit," Ardern explained.
"Remember, we are also putting through the largest number of residency applications New Zealand has ever done at one time, because those who were here for the period of COVID, a large number of those we've said are eligible for residencies, all of those things."
Ardern added there have been significantly more people applying for visitor visas than expected.
"One of the main reasons for this particular issue is we had a much larger than expected application for people to come into the country who required visitor visas, much larger than was forecast," she said.
"So that's the primary reason that immigration has provided, but again, processing more quickly than receiving now."
Watch the full interview with Jacinda Ardern above.
