It was a family reunion as Jacinda Ardern arrived in the tiny Pacific nation of Niue.

Getting off her plane on the second leg of a trek across the region, the Prime Minister was greeted with a hug from her dad, New Zealand's High Commissioner to Niue, Ross Ardern.

In the airport her young niece, sister Louise and mother Laurell were also waiting.

While it's Ardern's first visit as Prime Minister, her father's role and his previous posting as Niue's police commissioner have made the country of about 1500 residents a second home.

In a traditional ceremony and prayer today, she was welcomed as a "daughter of Niue".

"They call you the daughter of Niue because your parents stay here," minister Tamakau Tota Vivian told the audience.

"We are looking forward to something better."

Ardern recalled her first visits to the island following the devastation of Cyclone Heta in 2004 and the "enormous" growth that had come since.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is welcomed to Niue with a Takalo, a traditional Niue war dance. (Photo / Michael Craig)

But while the welcome was warm, the Prime Minister has a serious task ahead of her.

Like in the other nations she'll be visiting during this week's Pacific Mission, the Government is looking to set its mark with a "reset" of foreign policy amid increasing interest from other countries with deeper pockets.

"We're increasingly moving away from this donor-recipient relation to a genuine partnership and desire we achieve mutual goals," Ardern told an audience in the capital Alofi.