Brazil’s visa waiver has a positive effect on tourism
Brazil’s Visa exemption for tourists from United States, Canada, Japan and Australia has already proved to be a positive measure with beneficial impact on tourism sector.
The waiver programme came into effect from June 1 and will last until September 18, allowing tourists from these four countries to have a guaranteed visa free entry to Brazil with a limited stay of up to 90 days.
United States, Canada, Japan and Australia were selected by the Brazilian government after taking into account the high flow of tourists coming from these countries to Brazil, visitor spending and the countries’ strong Olympic tradition.
According to Ministry of Tourism, visa exemption already showed to be positive in Japan and Canada. Travel search engine, Skyscanner, showed that after visa waiver came into effect searches for trips to Brazil within Japan more than doubled, increasing by 114% over the same period in 2015.
Furthermore, Japan’s top three tour companies, KNT, JTB and Top Tour which sell trip packages to Rio 2016 Olympics have reported that most of the tickets and packages to Brazil have entirely sold-out. Experts expect the numbers of Japanese tourists visiting Brazil this year to be higher than those in 2015.
According to Skyscanner, in Canada data showed that searches for trips to Brazil grew by 20% since the visa exemption. Canadian Embassy released a statement saying they expect high numbers of Team Canada fans to visit Brazil,
“In the World Cup, the combination of this great event and the visa waiver resulted in an increase of ten thousand Canadian tourists in Brazil.
“Canadians are great sports fans, so we anticipate that the Olympics and the visa waiver will further motivate the arrival of fans of Team Canada, including family and friends of athletes.”
Thanks to strong tourism link between Brazil and Australia, Ministry of Tourism officials also expect a twenty percent increase in the number of Australian tourists visiting the Olympics when compared to the number of Australians that visited Brazil during the World Cup 2014.
During the World Cup, Australians were one of the largest groups of international tourists.
Indeed, the U.S. Embassy in Brazil has also praised the visa waiver programme, highlighting the expectations that as many as 200,000 Americans will be traveling to Brazil during the Olympics, more than double the amount that travelled to the country during the World Cup.
In a statement, U.S. Embassy said,
“Brazil’s decision to temporary suspend the visa requirement for US citizens is a positive initiative. This will facilitate the travel of Americans who will attend the Games.”
Tourism Minister Henrique Eduardo Alves is happy with the positive effect,
“This innovative initiative of the Brazilian government will bring even more visitors to our country, generating more jobs and income. We will have the chance to show to American, Canadian, Japanese and Australian tourists all our natural and cultural charms.”
Award winning Brazilian developer Ritz-G5 and its Sales Director, Miller Reis, are not surprised with the positive effect of visa waiver. Mr Reis comments,
“Introducing visa exemption to US, Canada, Japan and Australia was a great initiative which in turn will attract more international visitors to Brazil and we can already see the positive effect this decision has on tourism sector.”
For more information on visa exemption, contact the team on +44 207183 7565 or visit www.ritz-g5.com.
