Without Samba, New Year’s Eve and Carnaval, Rio Loses Tourists as Economy Lacks ‘Fuel’

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Covid-19 hit the heart of Rio de Janeiro. An icon of national culture and the main destination for foreigners who come to the country in search of leisure, the city has a large part of its economic based on creative activities and tourism. However, both sectors are among the most affected by the pandemic.

For the first time in five decades, Rio will not have a fireworks show on Copacabana Beach on New Year’s Eve. Carnaval will also not take place for the first time since the early 20th century. The celebration was once postponed in 1912 because of the death of the Baron of Rio Branco, patron of Brazilian diplomacy. However, the revelers circumvented the ban and created other carnivals that year.

Along with the lives of over 16,000 people, the virus stripped the city of its main cultural imprint, the charm of the streets. The meetings on the corners, squares, bars and tables on the sidewalks, mostly rocked by music, are no longer what they were before the pandemic. The beach is left, which the Rio de Janeiro citizen insists on attending, disrespecting the rules of prevention of Covid-19 contagion.

The drums of the samba schools, the samba circles and the sound boxes of the funk balls are silenced. There are no foreign tourists, bars and restaurants struggle to survive or have closed their doors and hotels are under-occupied. Unemployment, which was already high before the pandemic – 13 percent in the first quarter – exploded in these sectors. Before the covid-19 came, there were 107,000 cultural workers, 100,000 in the hotel sector and 110,000 in bars and restaurants, about ten percent of the total number of employees in the municipality. The cultural sector did not completely stop, due to the phenomenon of online live performances, which were not always paid. Hotels have already lost 20,000 jobs and bars and restaurants some 9,000.

“The impact is catastrophic because a rebound is more difficult for these two sectors and for those who depend on them. The Galeão airport is only operating one international daily flight,” says economist Luiz Gustavo Barbosa, of the Getúlio Vargas Foundation. In terms of Culture, 90 percent of activities depend on the physical presence and meeting of people, he says. “This sector is on assisted breathing.”

In samba schools, joy gave way to apprehension. With empty warehouses and closed rehearsal courts, survival in the coming months is the main concern. At this time of year, the blocks would be choosing their samba-plot or performing rehearsals, and the warehouses would be at the peak of preparation for the parades. In the City of Samba neighborhood, which houses the warehouses of the Special Group schools, only firemen, security guards and streetsweepers are to be seen.

The Independent League of Samba Schools of Rio de Janeiro (LIESA) says it is impossible to get the schools on the avenue in February without a vaccine against Covid-19. “Who will buy a ticket to watch the parades at the Sambadrome without a vaccine?” asks the president of Portela school, Luis Carlos Magalhães. The school leaders will decide in September if the festival will be suspended or deferred to another month in 2021. “There is a chance to reschedule. It’s only viable until May. Then, it would be the beginning of the preparation for the next Carnival, in 2022,” Magalhães says.

Portela lost 20 percent of its revenue without the events now blocked, such as the traditional ‘feijoadas’ (black beans casserole). The school relied on the federal government’s daytime reduction programs to keep its administrative staff and professionals permanently on parades, such as the master of the feast, the flag bearer and the master of the drums. “We have zero revenue, except for what comes from the contributing partners and fans, but it has also dropped.”

Professionals such as plasterers, stylists and prop masters are left with no perspective. “It’s complicated, I’m surviving on cake, candy and snacks orders and the emergency aid,” says Lilian Cristina de Jesus, who has been making props for São Clemente school for ten years. The income from the work at the warehouse had covered the artisan’s budget for five to six months of the year since 2003. She says she is struggling to pay the rent for the house where she lives with her teenage son. “I’m paying about 50 percent of the rent, my debt is over R$2,000,” she says.

Paulo Roberto Santos works for several schools completing visual effects in costumes. The artist, who usually works at Beija-Flor, Vila Isabel and Mocidade, makes half of his annual income from the festival. He had started working as a tattooist this year and the pandemic interrupted the activity. “I don’t know what will happen in the future, I don’t know what to do”, he says. A fund-raising campaign, called the Barracão Solidário, was recently launched to help the approximately 1,000 workers in the warehouses, supplying them with basic food baskets. Wagner Gonçalves, the founder of the initiative, says that many of them were unable to receive the governmental emergency aid.

Over 450 carnaval street blocks decided they will not parade in February without a vaccine. The postponement to another month in 2021 is still on the horizon and depends on the progress of vaccine trials and effective distribution to the population. “There is pressure from the hospitality sector and sponsors to do it. I see no other choice but for it to be held through live stream, or perhaps recorded events with a reduced number of participants and no audience. It’s more reasonable,” says singer-songwriter Pedro Luis, founder of Monobloco, a large block that was the first to return Carnaval to the streets of Rio de Janeiro in the early 2000s.

Monobloco holds drum workshops in Rio, São Paulo and Belo Horizonte. It relies on a group of about 30 professional musicians who perform from 100 to 120 shows in the country and abroad throughout the year. Between December and February, the number of performances is higher. Everything was suspended. Without the Carnaval parade, the block may be deprived of its regular sponsor. To circumvent the crisis, the musicians have reinvented themselves. The Monobloco workshops are now online and have gathered students from all three cities. The total number of students dropped from 350 to 200. A good part of the technical team began to receive the emergency aid. Most of the 30 musicians began to teach online individually and others are involved in other digital artistic projects.

Pedro Luís is resistant to making live streams of the block, because it would require the group to meet, which he considers a risk. “The wheel must keep spinning, but responsibly and informed. We have a central government in the background that flirts with death. Not only does it have a policy of death for a certain section of the population, but it invites death to dance. Anyone who is armed and anyone who shoots can be shot. It’s bizarre, a perverse seduction,” he says. Pedro Luís has performed individual live streams on social media to raise funds for the technicians who work with him in his solo career. “It’s a war exercise,” he says.

The Caramuela block, which mixes forró and samba, would produce its third Carnival in 2021 and planned to open two workshop classes. “The pandemic brought us down,” says one of the association’s founders, musician Igor Conde. To survive, the five people who produce the block also joined the digital platforms. Of the 100 students in attendance, 60 migrated to online classes. “We are struggling to close the accounts for the month and prospects are very bleak. Our market will be the last to rebound,” he says.

The Rio Carnaval brought ten million people to the streets in February this year, a record. Of this total, 2.1 million were tourists. For street blocks alone, there were seven million revelers. The city had a return of R$4 billion and the hotel activity recorded a 93 percent occupancy. With the pandemic shortly after, tourism plunged into a “devastating” scenario, according to the president of the Brazilian Association of the Hotel Industry of Rio de Janeiro (ABIH-RJ), Alfredo Lopes.

Some 90 hotels suspended their operations in March and the current occupancy rate, only 28 percent, is made up of health professionals or oil platform workers and the elderly. In mid-August, corporate events were released by the City Hall, a demand from the sector’s business community. “Events sustain the hotel industry in Rio. Leisure tourism does not sustain occupancy because it is concentrated on weekends and summer,” Lopes says. The entrepreneur projects more than two years to compensate for the losses caused by the pandemic. “The coming year will see a slow rebound, people will still be taking the vaccine. Many lost their jobs or had their wages reduced. No one travels with the money for beans and rice,” adds the president of ABIH-RJ.

Some hotels have opened again in the past weeks. The luxurious Copacabana Palace reopened on August 20th after four months closed. During this period, the hotel had only one distinguished guest, singer Jorge Benjor. The hotel changed the focus of its operations and now targets the city’s residents, with 30-hour accommodation packages.

Last month some tourist spots were also reopened, such as Christ the Redeemer, Sugar Loaf, the port area Ferris Wheel and AquaRio, with the adoption of Covid-19 preventive measures. All are focused on Rio residents or tourists coming from nearby locations. This first weekend, there were queues to visit Christ the Redeemer and Sugar Loaf.

Carioca bars and restaurants are trying to resist. Of the 7,000 establishments open, after another 3,000 closed, 80 percent were operating in the red by late July, according to the Brazilian Association of Bars and Restaurants of the State of Rio (ABRASEL-RJ). The projection is that 30 percent will close their doors by the end of the year due to lack of bank credit.

Traditional bohemian addresses are waiting for customers. The centennial Bar Luiz, historical heritage of the city, kept its 14 employees. Located downtown, it started to deliver and launched a campaign of collective financing on social media. Casa Villarino, where musician Tom Jobim and poet Vinícius de Moraes performed in the 1950s, is struggling to survive. It was there that the term Bossa Nova, the musical genre that became known throughout the world, was first heard. In the first two weeks after reopening, Villarino recorded a 90 percent drop in turnover and started to offer meal delivery services and take-away. The Hipódromo bar, a bohemian haven for the wealthy in the south zone, closed its doors after 75 years of operation.

Theaters, cinemas, show houses and museums are still closed. For the president of the Association of Theater Producers of Rio de Janeiro (APTR), Eduardo Barata, the situation is a “calamity” for the sector. Just before quarantine, 100 theatrical shows were ready to premiere. “Few live on sponsorship. Most artists live from the box office and are relying on the help of family and friends,” he says. Among the approximately 5,500 professionals in the sector, artists and technicians, the majority received the governmental emergency aid.

Now, artists are waiting for the release of resources through the Aldir Blanc Law, wich was sanctioned by the President and published on August 18th, almost two months after it was first passed in the Chamber. The most critical aspect of the emergency law, according to Barata, is the release of R$104 million by the federal government through the Rio State for spaces and micro and small cultural enterprises, in monthly amounts ranging from R$3,000 to R$10,000 reais. Another part of the law provides for culture-specific emergency. There are R$39 million to be passed on by the City Hall. However, those who receive the general emergency aid are not eligible for this benefit.

So far, the only specific governmental aid for culture has been the delivery of basic food baskets by the state government along with the city hall. A total of 250 baskets were delivered to theaters, all intended for technicians. “Until there is a vaccine, we’ll have to reinvent ourselves, either on the internet or in open-air shows with few artists,” says Barata.

Source: El País