From Tourism to the world of data: what I learned working at Sebrae

On June 1, 2015, after a few months of a fierce selection process, I began my professional career as a tourism analyst at Sebrae Nacional, in Brasília.

Recently arrived from Minas Gerais, with previous experiences in public power and in a small consultancy, I was surprised by the diversity of topics in which the institution operates.

Sebrae has projects that serve from small artisans present in the countryside throughout Brazil to the Startups super technological that are moving towards becoming global unicorns. And in this vastness of initiatives, which raises an internal reflection on the focus, tourism finds a prominent place.

During the little more than three years that I was part of the tourism team, I understood the dimension that the segment has. I learned, and I dare to say, that Sebrae is one of the main executing arms of public tourism policies in the country.

There are years of engagement, and sometimes leadership, in the different projects developed: implementation of Technical Standards, Safe Adventure Program, National Tourism Competitiveness Index, dozens of Tourism Exhibitions, Talents from Rural Brazil...

The list is vast, the results transformative, but of course, not exempt from some criticisms - such as the discontinuity of some initiatives that would need more time to consolidate, the strong political pressure received, which influences some decisions that should be technical, etc.

After these three years, I, who am a card-carrying tourist, decided that it was time to change scenery and experience new challenges in my career. I migrated to another unit of Sebrae and started working with data on small businesses, from different segments. Soon I, who had always run away from mathematics, was immersed in a new world that involved quantitative research, monitoring, cubes, clouds and the so-called big data, the theme of the most New Book published here in LETS, by my colleague Rayane Ruas.

It was at that moment that I discovered a new Sebrae and realized the different possibilities that academia, public power and society itself can find in the data collected and made available by the institution.

Or DataSebrae is the repository of the main research carried out by Sebrae, both from the National and Sebrae/UFs. In it, users can browse through information that seeks to understand the reality of Brazilian small businesses and, based on them, weave new analyses. As a more recent example, since the beginning of SARS-Cov-2, Sebrae, in partnership with the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV), set out to monitor the impacts that the pandemic resulted in on small businesses in numerous segments, including tourism. In all, 14 editions of an online survey were carried out, which had the participation of entrepreneurs from all Brazilian states.

We know that the pandemic was devastating, in many ways, for the whole world. However, the data collected by Sebrae helped to quantify this scenario and could have been the basis for directing emergency initiatives and building more consistent public policies.

At a time when desperation took over society and relief actions were expected from the different government spheres, and from Sebrae itself, having this data at hand, collected and processed practically in real time, was an asset that was little used.

Following this issue closely, I and three other authors, Ana Clévia Guerreiro, Fernanda Hummel and Helena Costa, were motivated to write the chapter of the book " Small tourism businesses in Brazil in the COVID-19 pandemic: effects of the crisis, perspectives and current feelings", available in the book "Tourism, Sustainability and COVID-19 ", also published by LETS.

Based on the data collected by Sebrae/FGV, we conducted an analysis of nine economic variables: variation in weekly revenue, impact on monthly revenue, temporary closure, definitive closure, dismissal of employees, government measures that could help, recurrence of loans, default and expectation for the recovery of the Brazilian economy. As a complement, and in order to find two real examples for each feeling mentioned in the survey, we interviewed managers of eight small businesses in the tourism and food away from home segments.

I invite you, who follow us on the LETS blog, to access this text and check out the main findings of the work.

As a preview, it should be noted here that:

if, on the one hand, the Sebrae/FGV survey presented a predominantly negative view on the part of entrepreneurs, in the interviews, despite the brutal crisis still faced, elements of recovery and innovation emerged in some businesses, indicating a greater concern with the sustainability of travel.

Shortly before the publication of the book, on August 1, 2022, I said goodbye to Sebrae Nacional. I decided that it was time to return to work more directly with tourism, from which I had been away for almost four years.

I can say that I left with my horizons broadened, with a greater admiration for the technical area of the institution and facing the data, which I feared so much, as important allies. In an academic world in which resources are increasingly scarce, using structures such as those of Sebrae can be a path to be better explored by all of us.