Barranquilla’s carnival brings growing economic benefits
Joyous dancing to cumbia music. Troupes parading with animal masks. Floats brimming with fresh flowers. A Carnival Queen wearing an elegant gown. Indigenous groups playing wooden flutes. Barranquilla’s pre-Lenten Carnival shines as Colombia’s largest cultural extravaganza mixing European, African, and native American cultures. It’s also an important economic driver for the city, attracting visitors from around the globe both for the event itself and year-round through the publicity it brings.
Now, leaders aim to boost that economic impact through increased marketing, greater cultural exchanges with other Colombian cities and later, more consistent presentations of Colombia’s diverse cultural offerings overseas.
Already, promotions feature a world-class Carnival Museum launched in Barranquilla in 2021. The museum offers videos, photos, costumes, and other exhibits that trace the history of Carnival globally and dive deep into Barranquilla’s version that some rank among the world’s largest after Rio de Janeiro’s.
Sandra Gomez, a former journalist, heads up the public-private partnership Carnival SA that organizes the annual event. She describes the February 2023 Carnival as its most attended yet, drawing nearly 670,000 visitors from across Colombia and from such overseas nations as the United States, Spain, Germany, Canada, and Japan. Those visitors filled almost all the city’s roughly 8,600 hotel rooms during its peak weekend and an average 83 percent of those rooms on its four main days. In all, out-of-town Colombians spent roughly $500 each and overseas guests some $700 each during the fete – or $350 million-plus in visitor outlays, a new record this past year. That doesn’t count the money that locals spend on Carnival – to make costumes, decorate floats, attend events, and buy food and drink. And it omits the value of buzz generated in media, both traditional and social, prepared by 600-plus journalists from outlets such as CNN en Español, and Celebra Peru, and from folks posting 700,000 times on Facebook alone, officials add.
“Carnival is the biggest enterprise in Barranquilla,” says Gomez. “It generates 30,000 direct and indirect jobs – in creative industries for dancers, musicians, artisans, designers, and make-up artists, and for many others [such as] security staff, food vendors, drivers, and hotel workers. We prepare for it all-year round.”
Key to the Carnival’s success is diversity, especially in music. “You identify Rio Carnival with samba, Trinidad & Tobago’s with calypso, and New Orleans’ Mardi Gras with jazz. But here, we have many different rhythms. One group may be dancing cumbia, another garabato, another mapale and another son de negro. We have many cultures with different folkloric traditions, and we all share together.”
Barranquilla’s modern carnival has roots dating back more than a century. Records show the first Carnival King crowned in 1888, the first Battle of Flowers held in 1903, and first Carnival Queen named in 1918. Organizers added the Grand Parade and orchestra competitions in the 1960s, while the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) designated the celebration among the world’s masterpieces of intangible cultural heritage in 2003.
Gomez now seeks to leverage that heritage with more regular cultural exchanges within Colombia; later, she envisions tours worldwide with folkloric artists from across Colombia, helping promote the country’s cultural offerings and attract more travelers.
“Carnival is one of the happiest moments in the city. We welcome guests like family,” says Gomez. “Everybody becomes an ambassador for Carnival.”
