By Gurbir Singh (Hamilton, New Zealand) 05 Nov., 2018:
Travelers departing from New Zealand would no longer have to fill the Departure Card at airports while leaving the country. This 97-years old practice comes to an end today, 5 November 2018.
The move to scrap departure cards is to make border crossing smoother and faster for travelers. It would also save time and inconvenience to millions of travelers -especially those who are elderly, semi literate or who had little understanding of English.
The New Zealand departure card required more details than many other countries and removing it brings the country in line with international best practice. Australia removed its departure card in 2017.
The main purpose for the cards was statistical and Tourism and migration statistics relied on departure cards, which asked travelers how long they had been in New Zealand and how long they intended to be away. From today, Stats NZ will switch to a new electronic system that measures actual time that travelers are in New Zealand and how long they are away.
Last year, 6.5 million departure cards were completed. This represents around 100,000 hours of traveler time (which is around 12 years). Based on departure statistics, it is estimated over 132 million cards have been filled out since they were introduced in April 1921.
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Gurbir Singh is a New Zealand-based Freelance Feature Writer & Journalist. He can be contacted at: gurbir@journalist.com