Rarotonga Airport. Photo: Airport Authority Cook Islands
The Cook Island Tourism Industry Council is elated at the government's announcement of two new airline partnerships; however the benefits will not kick in until mid-2023.
"Not just from one country but two. So we are really excited to have North America back on board via Hawaii and then of course Sydney soon after. It will make all of the difference for our small country that is so reliant on tourism," the council's President Liana Scott said.
The airline partnerships announced by the government include direct flights between Rarotonga and Honolulu with Hawaiian Airlines which kick off in May next year.
From June direct flights to and from Sydney will also take off.
"Our country, like many others, has had to survive a long period of time with no visitors," Prime Minister Mark Brown said.
Brown said negotiations took a long time but did not say why.
Another low season
With the routes set down to start next year, tourism operators are staring down the barrel of yet another low season.
"Unfortunately, it is not going to be in time for this coming season so we are expecting a pretty quiet low season for this coming year so, December/January/February is our quietest period. But we find when we have flights coming out of the US or Sydney we are able to fill that gap a lot better," Scott said.
Scott said while businesses need to wait a little longer, the wait is softened by the prospect of increased cash flow when the flights take off.
"There's not a magic number per se but we look at the 2019 figures, from the US which is also Europe and from Sydney direct. That would bring probably just over 50,000 tourists.
"The plan is ideally to increase the number of flights out of Sydney to three, at the moment they will start at two flights a week and if there is enough demand they will hope to increase that to three and same with the Hawaii route," Scott said.
Government continues to underwrite flights
The Cook Islands Government already had $10 million - around $US6.4 million - allocated to underwriting flights.
"There is an appropriation in our budget to cover those costs, in this year's budget you can see there is an allocation in there for $10 million for airline underwrite costs," Brown said.
Brown could not disclose the subsidy rate.
Avarua market Photo: RNZ Walter Zweifel
