Canadians will once again need a tourist visa to visit Brazil, effective Oct. 1. The South American country is re-imposing the requirement (as well as for Brits, Americans, and Japanese travellers), because those countries require visas for Brazilians.

Former president Jair Bolsonaro had scrapped the visa requirements in 2019 to bolster the country’s tourism industry, but the four countries continued to demand visas from Brazilians.

The decision to grant the visa exemptions had represented “a break with the pattern of Brazilian migration policy, historically based on the principles of reciprocity and equal treatment,” the foreign ministry said in a statement released quietly late Monday.

“Brazil does not grant unilateral exemption from visiting visas, without reciprocity, to other countries,” the ministry said, while noting that the government is ready to negotiate visa waiver agreements on a reciprocal basis.

Representatives of the tourism industry in Brazil were critical of the move.

The chief executive of one of Rio de Janeiro’s top tourist attractions, the cable cars on Sugar Loaf Mountain, criticized the decision. Sandro Fernandes told Folhapress before the official announcement that the decision would be a “setback.”

“Instead of closing the door to four nationalities, we should be discussing which are the next four to release visa exemptions. And then four more. This should be the government’s agenda,” Fernandes said.

Before the pandemic hit, Brazil received 6.4 million tourists in 2019, far below Mexico’s 45 million and less than Argentina’s 7.4 million, according to data from the United Nation’s World Tourism Organization.

Data from Brazil’s tourism ministry indicates that entries of Americans, Australians, Canadians, and Japanese people fell between 2019 and 2021, but the pandemic caused the global tourism industry to grind almost to standstill and is largely responsible for the drop.