For its innovation, technology, sustainability, governance and accessibility, Medellin is a leader and benchmark in the Americas for its management model for Smart Tourist Destinations, according to SEGITTUR, the Spanish entity that certifies this type of destinations worldwide. For this reason, the capital of Antioquia received the visit of a delegation composed of 20 delegates from Brazil belonging to the governmental, academic and business sectors, with the objective of learning, through knowledge transfer, the good practices of the city as a Smart Tourist Destination.
Between 2021 and 2022, Medellin has led more than 40 knowledge transfer sessions with cities in Colombia and other countries in the Americas.
The group learned about Medellín’s Smart Tourism certification process, its achievements and challenges. Also, they learned about tourism applications such as Medellín Travel (the official travel guide) and Medellín City Card (the digital passport for parks and attractions), and visited the Smart Tourism Center (first in the country).
“We are very pleased to be able to share with our friends from Brazil all the knowledge around what is the transformation of the smart tourism information system and what we have been doing to position Medellín as the first Smart Tourism Destination in Colombia,” said the Undersecretary of Tourism, Ledys López.
Between 2021 and 2022, more than 40 benchmarking sessions have been held, in which good practices were shared and knowledge was transferred to cities in Colombia and other countries in the Americas. In them, actions such as training focused on smart tourism destination, the stimulus program for sustainability, the reactivation of the tourism sector and the tourism culture strategy, among others, have been highlighted.
“I have come from Brazil to learn more about tourism development here in the city of Medellin. We came with the commission to learn how Medellin has formed a Smart City and a Smart Tourism Destination. I am looking forward to going back to Brazil with the good practices I am learning about here to put them into practice and turn them into projects in my province, Paraná, and in the south of Brazil, and develop smart tourism as they are doing here”, said Patricia Albanez, representative of the Brazilian Government.
About 65 entities have participated in the process of making Medellin the first Intelligent Tourism Destination in Colombia, including public, private, mixed, guilds and tourism service providers, which have provided information on the projects, programs and activities being developed.