Annual Flower Festival Once Again Brings Joy, Beauty, Tourism to Medellin
The just-concluded, 60th annual “Desfile de Silleteros” (flower-carriers’ parade) – the culmination of the 10-days-long “Feria de las Flores” (flower festival) – once again showed-off Medellin’s growing attraction for global tourists and an enticement for foreign investment and relocation.
This year, John Jairo Grajales Gómez of the “El Porvenir” neighborhood in Medellin’s Santa Elena district took the over-all prize for best “sillete” (flower design), as well as best “traditional” sillete.
According to the Medellin mayor’s office, this year’s parade featured 510 “silleteros,” including 23 graying pioneers that launched the event 60 years ago.
Aside from the hundreds of thousands of spectators that lined Avenida Guayabal to witness this year’s parade (crowd estimated at 800,000) — and thousands more viewing the event on five different television channels around Colombia — the festival also attracted more than 23,000 non-resident visitors to Medellin, of which more than 10,00 were foreigners, according to the mayor’s office.
Another 50,275 persons visited the “Orquideas, Pajaros y Flores” (orchids, birds and flowers) annual show in the Botanical Garden, according to the mayor. Medellin hotel occupation also rose, to around 65% during the 10-days-long festival.
The mayor’s office cited a study by the “Trivago” internet hotel reservation system indicating that 58.4% of foreign visitors to Medellin during the festival — as well as the “Colombiamoda” fashion show (immediately preceding the festival) — came from the USA. Travelers from Mexico, Spain, Peru and Ecuador rounded-out the top-five of foreign visitors.
María Fernanda Galeano, Secretary of Economic Development, added that the event generated more than US$22 million in extra tourist revenues including hotels, taxis, restaurants and services.
