Hours after the announcement by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern that Auckland would drop to Alert Level 2 from Monday, most of Air New Zealand's Auckland to Queenstown flights were booked out for the following seven days.
Southern District Health Board medical officer of health Susan Jack said there were protocols in place in all the district’s hospitals to keep patients with Covid-19 symptoms separate from those without them.
The SDHB and WellSouth could mobilise pop-up testing quickly if needed, she said.
Irrespective of where visitors came from, if they had Covid-19 symptoms they should stay at home or in their accommodation and immediately arrange for a test, Dr Jack said.
Queenstown Lakes District Mayor Jim Boult said he was not surprised Aucklanders wanted to travel to "our beautiful part of the world".
Given Jetstar had suspended all flights and Air New Zealand was operating at reduced capacity to ensure physical distancing could be observed, Mr Boult said he was not really sure the arrivals could be referred to as an "influx", and was confident authorities would be working to prevent the transmission of Covid-19.
"We live in a free country ... and New Zealanders are allowed to travel anywhere in New Zealand they want to.
"I will trust the authorities to be exercising the right diligence in this matter."
Air New Zealand chief executive officer Greg Foran said physical distancing requirements had reduced the number of seats they could sell on a turboprop aircraft to just less than 50% and 65% on an A320 jet.
"With these restrictions in place, some services are immediately at capacity." he said.
"We ... certainly can't operate commercially under these settings."
Destination Queenstown spokeswoman Jess Harkins said the regional tourist office had no information yet on whether there had been a spike in accommodation bookings for the town.
In Wanaka, Lake Wanaka Tourism spokeswoman Gizelle Regan said there had been a rise in the number of Aucklanders visiting its "Things to Do" and walking and hiking web pages.
