Billions in damage for the region: the cost of the carnival failure

Saturday, February 06, 2021

Billions in damage for the region
This is how expensive the carnival cancellation is

In the carnival strongholds on the Rhine and elsewhere, everything will remain quiet this year, Corona condemns the "fifth season" to the compulsory break. This is not only sad for all the revelers. The restaurateurs, hoteliers and event organizers miss out on billions in income.

The cancellation of the carnival due to the corona lockdown results in economic damage of 1.5 billion euros. This is the result of a study by the employer-related Institute of the German Economy (IW), from which the news portal t-online quotes. Accordingly, the catering industry is missing out on revenues of around 660 million euros, the hotel trade is missing sales of around 160 million euros, and the transport sector is missing 240 million euros.

The retail sector has also been hit hard. Due to the cancellation of the carnival session, the dealers made around 330 million euros less in sales – around 280 million euros of which was due to the lack of sales of costumes. "During the carnival season, restaurateurs, hoteliers and event organizers will painfully think about how drastic the lockdown, which has been going on since November, is", IW ​​director Michael Hüther told t-online

The cancellation of the carnival season was of course epidemiologically justified. "However, we will only have to see whether the gastronomy, hotel and event management sectors all had to close and they were really helped effectively," continued Hüther. The payment of the so-called November and December aid was not convincing and took too long.

According to t-online, the IW economists took into account the length of the carnival season, which always begins on November 11, but ends at different times in the following year. This year's carnival time is therefore comparatively short with 98 days. In the coming year 2022 it will be significantly longer at 110 days.