The number of Chinese visitors to Brazil in 2010 is expected to be more than tripple the 2006 number as more affluent residents travel abroad, an official with the Brazil Tourism Institute said in Beijing on Thursday.

Around 125,000 Chinese tourists will visit Brazil in 2010, up from just 37,000 in 2006, predicted Laercio Branco, director of the Brazil Tourism Institute's office in Japan. He added Brazil hosted 18,000 Chinese visitors in 2005.

Branco said that the signing of a memorandum of understanding on bilateral tourism cooperation by China and Brazil in 2005 had given a strong boost to the number of Chinese visiting the southern American country.

Brazil regards China as a very important visitor source and plans to take advantage of the opportunities offered by China's economic growth to seek closer cooperation in the field of tourism, Branco said at the ongoing Beijing International Tourism Expo.

Brazilian tourism authorities will host a series of tourism promotion activities in China this year and next year to attract more visitors to Brazil, he added.

Brazil ranks the 59th on the table of the world's most attractive tourism spots, and its tourism sector raked in 25 billion U.S. dollars in 2006, 2.8 percent of its gross domestic product, the World Economic Forum said in a report released in March.