After a year of cancellation due to the pandemic, the resumption of the samba school parades in Rio de Janeiro generates impacts that are not restricted to the limits of Marquês de Sapucaí.
The atypical Carnival of 2022, which will be celebrated on the Tiradentes holiday, also brings back to life part of the sectors of the Carioca economy that depend on revelry.
This is the case of stores that sell supplies for making costumes for schools or hotels, bars and restaurants that await the arrival of tourists for this month’s party.
The City Hall of Rio decided to transfer the Carnival from the sambadrome to the Tiradentes holiday due to the escalation of coronavirus cases at the beginning of the year.
Since then, with the truce in the pandemic amid the advance of vaccination, the parades were maintained.
The street blocks, on the other hand, were canceled by the municipal administration, which alleged lack of time to organize the festivities.
“The return of the fashion shows is a relief, a sigh, an oxygen tube. The pandemic had a huge impact. With the return, we started to breathe again and even hired new employees”, says Débora Ferreira, sales manager at Casa Pinto, store in downtown Rio that supplies fabrics for samba schools and the general public.
Despite celebrating the resumption of Sapucaí, Débora signals that business has not yet fully returned to the level of other school carnivals in the pre-coronavirus.
The uncertainties of the pandemic reduced the period of preparation for the party in 2022 – until the beginning of the year, there was still uncertainty about the event.
Another challenge came from the rise in operating costs, as fabrics became more expensive with production bottlenecks and the advance of the dollar during the health crisis.
“We had to reduce the margins. The school budget also decreased. It was necessary to make a readjustment”, says Débora.
Claudia Sakuraba, owner of Carnaval Store, which also sells fabrics to samba schools in Rio, follows the same line.
According to the entrepreneur, the preparation for this year’s Carnival was surrounded by challenges, such as the shorter time and higher inputs. Even so, she celebrates the return of the parades.
Claudia started preparing for Carnival in August. In periods prior to the pandemic, this process would have started earlier, in May.
“This year’s Carnival is a first step towards a return to normality. Even because of the high prices, schools had to adapt costs. We hope that this is the beginning of the improvement”, he reports.
According to her, the search for new suppliers and the replacement of more expensive inputs with cheaper items were other options adopted to guarantee sales.
“We did some gymnastics”, he defines.
Extended high season for hotels
The hotel sector, on the other hand, expects that the return of Sapucaí will generate a kind of bonus, according to Alfredo Lopes, president of HotéisRIO (Sindicato dos Meios de Alojamentos of the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro).
“It’s an extension of the high season,” he says.
According to the director, the occupancy of rooms in the Rio de Janeiro hotel chain used to be around 60% on holidays in Tiradentes.
With the increase of Carnival, the projection is for a rate close to 85% this year. The rise should be driven by the arrival of Brazilian tourists.
In the traditional period of revelry, in February, the occupation in the city was 84%, according to Lopes.
“We have the advantage of being close to São Paulo. As the price of air tickets is high, the shorter distance ends up facilitating the arrival of tourists”, he points out.
Encouragement to bars and restaurants
Rio’s bars and restaurants also speak of relief with the return of the parades.
“Our sector is very much linked to tourism. Demand is usually high when there is an increase in visitors to the city”, says Pedro Hermeto, president of Abrasel (Brazilian Association of Bars and Restaurants) in Rio de Janeiro.
He projects a nominal increase — without taking into account inflation — of 20% to 25% in the sector’s revenue, on average, in relation to other Tiradentes holidays. “Inflation will take a part of that.”
The forecast of greater demand, according to the director, comes at a time when bars and restaurants are trying to recover losses from the pandemic and are affected by the increase in operating costs.
“It’s a relief. We’ve been observing an increase in the flow of customers in general. But much of the money that comes in is bitten by the liabilities created in the pandemic”, he ponders.
If, on the one hand, the return of Sapucaí stimulates part of the Carioca economy, on the other hand, the absence of parades of blocks generates frustration.
As reported by the Sheet In February, the cancellation of the street Carnival shook plans and spread concern among street vendors and workers in the entertainment sector in different capitals of the country, including Rio.
leaf numbers
The normal schedule of the 2020 Carnival, before the outbreak of the pandemic, moved R$ 4 billion in the carioca economy, indicates the Municipal Secretariat for Economic Development, Innovation and Simplification, based on data from RioRiotur — the tourism company in the capital of Rio de Janeiro.
This volume was distributed in sectors such as hotels, bars, restaurants, commerce and events.
In 2020, the number of workers in the sambadrome alone was 20,000, including service providers, employees of public agencies and the press, according to the publication Carnaval de Dados, prepared by the Secretariat for Economic Development in partnership with Fundação João Goulart.
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