Canceled Shrove Monday parades, canceled ceremonial sessions and unusual celebrations: This year again, Corona is leading to economic losses in the billions for restaurateurs, hoteliers and costume rental companies in the carnival strongholds. According to calculations by the German Economic Institute (IW), the losses are likely to be even higher than in the previous year at up to 1.62 billion euros. The import of carnival items was also well below the pre-crisis level.
“Carnival still cannot take place like it did before Corona: Most meetings have been canceled or severely restricted, many revelers from outside stay away from the carnival strongholds,” explained the IW experts. Omicron superimpose the celebratory mood.
According to IW, under normal conditions, the economy would have earned around 1.79 billion euros with drinks, hotel accommodation and costumes. Only a fraction of that amount will be reached this year. With more than 40 percent of the total turnover, according to the IW, the biggest losses are again in restaurateurs and hoteliers, followed directly by retailers with a share of around 20 percent of the total turnover. With them, costume sellers are particularly affected. There are also failures in the transport sector, in ticket sales and other services.
In their study, the IW experts not only considered the Cologne carnival, but also the hustle and bustle in Düsseldorf and Mainz. According to the experts, there are two main reasons why the economic losses this year, at 1.62 billion euros, are likely to exceed the previous year’s figure of around 1.5 billion euros: On the one hand, the current session is 111 days, significantly longer than in the past Previous year. On the other hand, inflation has an impact.
In view of canceled parades and unusual celebrations, the import of carnival supplies to Germany has also collapsed. Last year, carnival and entertainment items worth 75.7 million euros were imported, as the Federal Statistical Office announced in Wiesbaden on Tuesday. That was 9.2 percent less than in the previous year and around a quarter (25.9 percent) less than before the corona pandemic in 2019.
The most important country of origin for the German market was China, the statisticians reported. Almost three quarters (72.2 percent) of the amount of carnival items imported in 2021 came from there.
In contrast, the export of streamers, cardboard noses and the like grew by 5.5 percent in 2021 compared to the previous year to 39.7 million euros. However, it was almost a fifth below the value of the pre-Corona year 2019 (49.5 million euros). The largest buyer of German carnival and entertainment items last year was Poland – more than a quarter of all exported carnival items went to the neighboring country.
Before the outbreak of the pandemic, foreign trade in carnival and entertainment items had been steadily increasing. In 2019, goods worth 102.1 million euros were imported – a good two-thirds more than ten years earlier (2009: 60.6 million euros). Exports also increased by more than half in the same period. (dpa)