Rio de Janeiro celebrates its most atypical Carnival today

The city of Rio de Janeiro resumes this Wednesday its most iconic festival with global repercussion: the school parades in the Sambadrome, in what will be the most unusual carnival in a century. In February, the authorities postponed the official celebrations - which had been suspended since 2021 - based on epidemiological indicators. Scheduled for April -Tirantentes holiday in Brazil-, the parades begin this Wednesday on the samba catwalk -better known as the Marqués de Sapucaí Sambadrome- and will last until Sunday, April 24 inclusive, because they usually close after midnight.

The Escolas are judged on nine aspects during their transit through the catwalk, among them harmony, quality of their samba enredo, percussion, allegory, performance of their commission from the front, costumes, evolution of the parade and the performance of the couple leading the parade. , the Mestre-sala and Porta-bandeira, who carry out a special choreography. The public that attends the Sambadrome must show their vaccination certificate against Covid-19.

“Some years passed without this ceremony taking place. Carnival is the greatest cultural manifestation of our people, the greatest symbol of our country. Carnival does not depend on these characters, but it is very important that we are living this moment”, said the mayor of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes, this Wednesday (20) when handing over the keys to the city to King Momo, taking up a tradition interrupted the last two years. The carnival party represented, until 2020, about 1.5% of the GDP of the city of Rio de Janeiro, according to estimates by the Brazilian Institute of Economy of the Getulio Vargas Foundation.

The traditional street carnival was not enabled this year by the Rio de Janeiro government, due to health reasons, despite the fact that the national government announced on Sunday (17) the end of the health emergency due to Covid-19. In São Paulo, where the parades of the local schools will take place on Friday and Saturday at the Anhembi Sambadrome, the government of the largest Brazilian metropolis (which allocated nearly 11 million dollars for its carnival parades) did not enable the "blocos" or street comparsas, and proposed to its organizers to postpone them until the middle of the year.

The resumption of Carnival in Brazil comes amid the recovery of the tourism sector in the post-pandemic. Nearly one million people traveled to Brazil by air in the 2021-2022 summer season, according to IATA data from December 2021 to March 2022. During that period, some 830,000 passengers arrived in Brazil from abroad, with United States, Argentina and Portugal, in that order, as the three largest emitters. Spain, the United Kingdom, Chile, Italy, Canada, France and Germany, in that order, complete the list. According to official figures, the internal air flow in Brazil is already at 80% of the level of activity it had until March 2020.

By destinations, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte were at the top of the list of destinations most in demand by international travelers. To follow, were Florianópolis, Salvador, Curitiba, Porto Alegre, Recife, Brasilia and Vitoria.

Data from the National Civil Aviation Agency (ANAC) show that 2.5 million international passengers boarded for Brazil last year, 23% less than in 2020.

The president of Embratur, Silvio Nascimento, celebrated the results and highlighted the Agency's role in attracting foreign tourists to Brazil. “Embratur's role in national promotion was a great challenge and coordinated with the Ministry of Tourism. We are happy with the results obtained by the sector, which has suffered greatly from the economic effects of the pandemic. Since July, our efforts have refocused on international promotion and we are working non-stop so that the arrival of foreign tourists continues to grow and we achieve positive results as soon as possible”, he assured.