Brazil Tourism Banked on non-vaccinated travelers: No more!

UNWTO official visit to Brazil to supports sustainable recovery of tourism
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Carnival in Rio, the hottest New Years’ parties in the world are expected to take place in Brazil.

Brazil’s travel and tourism industry had been banking on massive numbers of travelers from abroad to visit this South American country.

Brazil’s travel and tourism industry had been banking on massive numbers of travelers from abroad to visit this South American country.

The reason? Brazil had no restrictions for non-vaccinated travelers, and Brazil, where the summer season is starting has been a favorite among non-vaccinated travelers,

With a stroke of a pen, a Brazilian Supreme Court justice put a stop to this ruling, that all foreign passport holders arriving in Brazil must provide proof of vaccination against COVID-19

The decision from Luis Roberto Barroso on Saturday challenges a more lenient rule announced by the government of President Jair Bolsonaro, who has opposed mandatory immunization against the virus that can cause COVID-19.

Barroso’s ruling must be reviewed by all 11 judges of the Supreme Court next week.

The federal government announced on Tuesday that travelers arriving in Brazil did not have to produce a vaccine passport, though they would have to undergo a five-day quarantine.

The government later delayed the regulation for a week, due to a hacker attack on the Health Ministry on Friday.

The justice said the requirement for proof of vaccination could be waived only when the traveler comes from a country where no vaccines are available or the individual was prevented from vaccination due to health reasons.

Brazil’s president sees such a regulation as a restriction of freedoms.

Where is our freedom? I’d rather die than lose my freedom,” Bolsonaro said on Tuesday.

More than 616,000 people have died of COVID-19 in Brazil, the country with the second most deaths from the disease.

The pandemic has skyrocketed in recent months and the nation’s seven-day average is approaching 200 deaths a day. But many of Brazil’s major cities, including Rio de Janeiro, have either canceled or scaled back their New Year’s Eve festivities due to fears of a new outbreak of the virus.

About the author

Avatar of Juergen T Steinmetz

Juergen T Steinmetz

Juergen Thomas Steinmetz has continuously worked in the travel and tourism industry since he was a teenager in Germany (1977).
He founded eTurboNews in 1999 as the first online newsletter for the global travel tourism industry.

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