(Yicai) May 8 -- Online searches for flights to Brazil have jumped since the South American country announced a visa-free entry policy for Chinese citizens yesterday.

Searches for flights to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil's second-largest city, had doubled at 8.30 p.m. yesterday compared with the previous hour and had nearly doubled from last week, according to data from Chinese online travel platform Qunar. For flights to Brasília, the capital, searches doubled from the prior hour and by 4.5 times from last week.

The top five most popular departure cities for flights to Brazil were Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, and Chengdu, per the data. Searches for the Beijing-Rio route surged 6.8 times on the previous hour, and for flights from Shanghai and Chengdu to Brasília they soared over 10 times from the previous week.

The visa exemption policy, which will allow visa-free stays of up to 30 days for Chinese passport holders starting from next week, is likely to make Brazil a much more attractive long-haul destination for Chinese tourists. The country is renowned for its vibrant Carnaval culture, world-champion soccer team, vast Amazon rainforest, and iconic landmarks such as Rio’s Christ the Redeemer.

The move will further lower barriers to Chinese visitors to Brazil, said Yang Han, a researcher in Qunar's big data research institute, a sentiment echoed by Zhou Weihong, deputy general manager of Shanghai-based Spring Tour, in a report by The Paper.

In response to China's visa-free policy for Brazilian passport holders, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced in January that his government would introduce waivers for certain short-term visa categories for Chinese citizens.

Brazil ranked among China’s top 10 most popular overseas travel destinations during the recent Labor Day holiday, with flight bookings up 95 percent year on year, Yang said.

Editor: Tom Litting