The award to the capital of Valle was given at the World Travel Awards 2022 held in Montego Bay, Jamaica, which annually highlights the best tourist destinations worldwide.

"With great happiness we want to say that we won again the World Travel Awards-WTA award as Leading Cultural City Destination in South America. It is the third award in this category and we also obtained the distinction as an Emerging Destination, which ratifies us as a wonderful city with a lot of culture that attracts more and more tourists," said the city's Secretary of Tourism, Stefanía Doglioni.

These awards are known as the 'Oscars of Tourism' and are an initiative that seeks to recognize and honor the excellence of airlines, attractions, automobiles, cruises, destinations, hotels and resorts, among others, worldwide and in different categories.

The city was nominated in three categories: South America's Leading Sports Tourism Destination, South America's Emerging Tourism Destination and South America's Leading Cultural City Destination. In this last nomination it received a massive vote and took first place.

Cali was not the only city awarded in the country, as Colombia won 14 awards including San Andres, as 'Leading Beach Destination; Medellin, 'Leading Emerging Destination'; Bogota, 'Leading Business Destination'; Cali, 'Leading Cultural City'; Barranquilla, 'Leading Festivities and Events Destination'; and Cartagena, as 'Leading Honeymoon Destination'.

"These recognitions come at a time when tourism is in frank recovery, which is reflected in the growth of international arrivals to the country, which in the first half of this year were more than 1,955,000 visitors, representing an increase of 218.7% compared to the same period last year; and in turn represents a recovery of 88% of the total tourism activity that the country had in 2019, before the pandemic. We have also registered growth in areas such as cruises and segments such as the meetings industry, where we have exceeded expectations in terms of attracting events," said Gilberto Salcedo, ProColombia's Vice President of Tourism.