Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro announced that the South American nation will drop its requirement that visiting Chinese and Indian tourists or business people obtain visas.
Earlier this year, the Brazilian government ended visa requirements for tourists and business people from the United States, Canada, Japan and Australia. Those countries however have not in return dropped their visa requirements for Brazilian citizens.
Bolsonaro, a far-right politician came to power at the beginning of the year and has made it a policy to reduce visa requirements from a number of developed countries. But the announcement made during an official visit to China, is the first he has made expanding the policy to the developing world.
Brazil, a vast South American country, stretches from the Amazon Basin in the north to vineyards and massive Iguaçu Falls in the south. Rio de Janeiro, symbolized by its 38m Christ the Redeemer statue atop Mount Corcovado, is famed for its busy Copacabana and Ipanema beaches as well as its enormous, raucous Carnaval festival, featuring parade floats, flamboyant costumes, and samba music and dance.
Brazil offers for both domestic and international tourists an ample range of options, with natural areas being its most popular tourism product, a combination of leisure and recreation, mainly sun and beach, and adventure travel, as well as historic and cultural tourism.
Among the most popular destinations are the Amazon Rainforest, beaches and dunes in the Northeast Region, the Pantanal in the Center-West Region, beaches at Rio de Janeiro and Santa Catarina, cultural and historic tourism in Minas Gerais and business trips to
São Paulo city.
