Visitors from Mexico now need a visa to enter Canada. (CBC)

Some Toronto businesses say the federal government's decision to impose a visa requirement on Czech and Mexican visitors to Canada will have an immediate and detrimental effect.

Andrew Weir of Tourism Toronto says the requirement will especially hurt tourism from Mexico.

Over the past five years visitors from Mexico to Toronto have surpassed Japanese and German tourists and now hold the No. 3 spot for visitors to the city.

The Canadian tourism industry says Mexcians accounted for 266,000 visitors alone last year.

One of the main reasons for the increase in visitors to Canada was that the United States imposed a visa requirement for Mexicans.

Instead of going through the process of applying for a visa, many Mexican tourists opted to visit Canada instead where no extra documentation was required.

"We had an advantage and that advantage is gone," he said. "So this will cause people to look at other destinations. It's tough news at at time when growth markets like Mexico were so strategically important to us."

The new requirement in effect now after a 48-hour grace period, came after a spike in unfounded applications for refugee status. Since 2005, the number of Mexicans claiming refugee status in Canada has tripled.

Kevin Lowther, the director of a private language school in downtown Toronto, says he expects it will have an effect.

"If I view it purely from trying to run a profit-making business, [Mexcian students account for] 10 per cent of our business," he said.

Lowther said because there was no visa requirement, potential students could make last-minute arrangements.

"The nature of the Mexican market is that because they didn't have to have visas before it would be very short booking notice."

Andrew Weir says Tourism Toronto will begin an education campaign in Mexico advising tourists that they will need a visa to visit Toronto.