The $1.3 million campaign, to debut on Wednesday, coincides with the opening of the trans-Tasman travel bubble allowing travellers to fly internationally quarantine-free from today.

In the first step towards the re-opening of international borders, the Gold Coast has doubled-down on its marketing blitz to lure New Zealanders, as well as domestic travellers, to the holiday strip this winter.

The big-spending campaign follows a social media barrage of a 30-second video ‘New Zealand: We’re On!’ launched last Thursday featuring tear-jerking reactions to reunions in the countdown to today’s travel. It came after an earlier campaign, ‘Kia Ora Koutou, we miss you!’ in February which notched up 7 million views across New Zealand.

Two-way travel is open between Australia and New Zealand from today – 395 days since the Federal Government placed a ban on Australians travelling overseas.

No vaccination is required for travel, however passengers will be required to provide contact information for their time in New Zealand.

Air New Zealand today will send 30 flights to Australia, carrying more than 5000 people.

Qantas has scheduled 25 flights, while Jetstar has scheduled four.

Destination Gold Coast CEO Patricia O’Callaghan said the Gold Coast’s 4,600 tourism businesses would welcome New Zealanders with open arms.

“Our $1.3 million marketing push is the Gold Coast’s largest-ever spend in New Zealand, so the proportion of investment reflects the importance of re-engaging with this key visitor market,” O’Callaghan said.

“New Zealand was our second-largest international visitor market source pre-COVID and this is a significant milestone for Gold Coast tourism operators being the first international market to come back online in more than a year.”

O’Callaghan said the New Zealand campaign would stretch across 12 weeks to create momentum for holiday and family reunion travel.

“Quarantine-free flights kick-off this week and with the inclusion of the new Qantas Gold Coast-Auckland service supplying an additional 63,000 inbound seats, we have three carriers flying into the Gold Coast and expect capacity to rebuild quickly,” she said.

Gold Coast Airport chief operating officer Marion Charlton said travel to the Gold Coast had been building in the lead up to the launch of the trans-Tasman bubble.

“Bookings have been really, really strong. I think people are very keen to travel again both domestically and trans-Tasman,” Charlton said.

“We’ve been one of the major winners in the government subsidy program, and people are just loving coming to the Gold Coast.”