Brazil tourism sector tries to rise from pandemic ashes: Philippines lifts Covid-19 restrictions in capital

Manila: The Philippines will lift most Covid-19 restrictions in the capital Manila next month, President Rodrigo Duterte’s spokesman said Sunday, after a sharp drop in infections and a rising number of people vaccinated.

It comes weeks after the country reopened its borders to foreign tourists for the first time in two years and as campaigning for the May 9 national elections cranks up. Businesses, government agencies and public transport will be allowed to operate at full capacity when the metropolis of 13 million people is placed on the lowest alert level on March 1, said Duterte spokesman Karlo Nograles, which he previously described as the "new normal".

Masks will still have to be worn in public, but will no longer be required during sport or exercise under the new rules, which also apply to another 38 areas of the country. Temperature checks for entering establishments will not be necessary and contact tracing efforts all but scrapped.

Cases have averaged 1,421 in the past week, compared with a peak of 39,004 on January 15 when the highly contagious Omicron strain ripped through the country. After lengthy lockdowns which devastated the economy and threw millions out of work, the relaxation will help ease the financial misery for many Filipinos.

The vaccination rate in Manila has reached "100 percent", a government official said recently, but the rate is much lower in other parts of the country. The virus has infected more than 3.6 million people and killed more than 56,000, according to government data.

Meanwhile, with the glittering parades, towering floats and sultry samba postponed by the omicron variant, Brazil will have a carnival week without much carnival this year -- bad news for a tourism industry already battered by the pandemic.

In a world without Covid-19, this would have been the week a deluge of tourists -- more than 2.1 million in 2020 -- descended on Rio de Janeiro for a free-for-all of street parties and spectacular, all-night parades.

Instead, industry experts predict Rio and other tourist destinations to be relatively low-key, with a smaller number of visitors -- mainly Brazilians traveling domestically. That is adding to the agony of a tourism industry only just starting to recover from near-collapse in 2020.

"It’s been very traumatic," said Alexandre Sampaio, head of hotel and restaurant federation FBHA, citing official figures showing the tourism industry’s revenues plunged 35 percent in 2020.

The industry rebounded only partially in 2021, growing around 20 percent. Carnival week will still have concerts, parties and balls in Rio -- limited to 70 percent capacity, with vaccine and mask requirements.

But omicron led authorities to cancel carnival street parties for the second straight year, and postpone the famed samba school parade competition until April. "We’ll see some revenues" from the rescheduled parades, "but it won’t come anywhere near pre-pandemic levels," said Fabio Bentes, an economist at the National Confederation of Trade in Goods, Services and Tourism (CNC).

Bentes predicts carnival-week revenues one-third below pre-pandemic levels. His research indicates the tourism industry, which accounted for 7.7 percent of Brazil’s economy before the pandemic -- 551.5 billion reais ($110 billion) in direct and indirect revenues in 2019 -- has lost $94.1 billion in the past two years, and more than 340,000 jobs.