EXTRAORDINARY CREDIT TO MAINTAIN THE TOURISM SECTOR DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: ANALYSIS OF THE TOURISM GENERAL FUND

Public budgets are essential for the achieving government policies. In times of the Covid-19 pandemic, sectors of the economy such as tourism, have been drastically affected. To back up the sector, the Brazilian government has used the argument of protecting companies and preserving employment to use an extraordinary credit of R$ 5 billion for the Tourism General Fund (Fungetur). However, few of the available resources have been contracted. In this sense, this article has as its general objective to analyse the challenges of implementation of this line of credit with particular attention to the performance of such public policy in the state of Rio de Janeiro. To this end, an exploratory and descriptive research was carried out. Regarding the methodological aspects, in the bibliographical review we have relied on secondary data such as legislation, articles, livecasts and reports on the subject. In a complementarily manner, an interview was held with the representative of the Regional Governance Unit (IGR) Costa do Sol. The study revealed the complexity of public policy for tourism funding set up to rescue the sector under crisis. Among the main barriers it was verified the existence of bureaucratic difficulties to access Fungetur's resource, unattractive interest rate in comparison to other available loans on the banking system, and a few accredited financial agents (AFC) ready to operate with the resource. The purpose of this research is to collaborate for the discussion of the use of additional claims and associated risks in an absence of studies and analyses highlighting the cost-benefit ratio, the criteria for the distribution of resources, guarantees, and implementation processes.