The president and founder of the Excelencias Group, Jose Carlos de Santiago, has announced the call for the first edition of the Magical Ecuador by Excelencias Awards. The 6th International Smart City Ecuador Congress was the framework chosen to present these awards, with which the Excelencias Group seeks to recognize Ecuador's rich cultural, natural and historic heritage.
The presentation took place on June 21 and was attended by the Undersecretary of Competitiveness and Tourism Development of the Ministry of Tourism of Ecuador, Carlos Tapia Palacios, along with the President of the Association of Municipalities of Ecuador (AME), Patricio Maldonado Jimenez, and the President of DDG Communications, Dominique Calle.
Henry Machuca, Tourism Development Analyst for the Association of Ecuadorian Municipalities, spoke about the essence of magical towns, their relationship with tourism and sustainability with a view to the future of the industry, with an impact on his country, as it needs to become a pillar of strategic management.
During his speech, Mr. José Carlos de Santiago expressed his gratitude for the opportunity to launch the call for the Ecuador por Excelencias Magical Towns Awards and recalled that the origins of these awards date back to the request of Mexico's Ministry of Tourism to honor its hundreds of magical towns.
After reviewing the emergence of the Excelencias Awards during the FITUR fair in Spain, Mr. Jose Carlos de Santiago talked about the different versions that have been created since then.
He also underscored the potential of the Excelencias Group as an international platform with 35 media outlets with the strength to showcase the potential of the Americas and the Caribbean.
He also addressed the origins of the Magic Awards Ecuador by Excelencias, which have the support of people interested in bringing successful experiences with results to their country, such as the Magic Awards Mexico, with which more than 30 countries were linked and which had around 3,420 publications on social platforms. "This is the birth of a possibility, of an expectation," said De Santiago, who added that it is also a great opportunity for tourism to be a way of social inclusion and relations with sustainability.
"We want to propose to you that this becomes a challenge, that Ecuador fights for its tourism and that if your society wants to achieve sustainability, think about tourism," he added. He invited Ecuadorians to be the most loving and the most fighters in the challenge of transmitting the empowerment of these Awards. "Believe in your people and in your gastronomy," he invited.
For his part, Mr. Carlos Tapia Palacios referred to the Magic Towns strategy, implemented in Ecuador since 2020, and that since 2021 was reformulated to include the concept of Magic Corners, "an initiative that allows to better locate the tourist attractions that make up a destination and focus efforts and resources so that these localities in these spaces in certain places have a better development, and that also opens the opportunity for slightly larger cities, with more inhabitants to apply for different magic corners".
Based on these new efforts, Ecuador has joined forces with a set of new partners to strengthen these destinations, with programs such as the Magical Ecuador by Excelencias Awards, he explained.
The initiative will make it possible to provide more value to the municipalities that become Magic Towns, he explained. "And that is why today with great pleasure, with great gratitude from the Ministry of Tourism we want to extend and communicate to the municipalities that from today we started the categorization of the Excellence Awards in Magical Towns," he announced.
These awards will be in charge of identifying the municipalities that have stood out in their efforts to develop their tourist destination, that have committed to this initiative and that are seeking their efforts and resources to stand out in this line, Tapia Palacios said.
To conclude, Mrs. Dominique Calle thanked the Tourism authorities present, the representatives of the Association of Municipalities of Ecuador and Mr. José Carlos de Santiago for this great initiative, which should not only be an award, but go beyond. She invited "to wear the Ecuadorian skin, let's make our Ecuador continue to be recognized and use that skin", she said.
The Magical Towns of Ecuador that work with the aim of maintaining and preserving their heritage, culture, tourism development and art, always with a view to guaranteeing sustainability in the process, will be awarded.
The Excelencias Group has completed 25 years of being a benchmark in Ibero-America and the Caribbean in terms of tourism, gastronomic and cultural information. To celebrate it, it remains true to its mission of supporting, promoting and disseminating the development of the tourism industry in Ibero-America with new projects like the Magical Ecuador Awards by Excelencias. With this award, a distinction will be given to those towns that represent a symbol of culture and nature for Ecuador.
The Excelencias Awards were born in 2005 and since its inception have recognized the work of people, projects and institutions in the fields of tourism, gastronomy and culture, who work hard always with the goal of being excellent. Every year, the first day of FITUR becomes the stage for the presentation of the EXCELENCIAS AWARDS, which in their 18th edition have been widely publicized internationally, with media coverage exceeding 2 million euros.
In early 2023, the Magicos por Excelencias Awards were presented at Mexico's Tianguis Turístico. These awards were very well received by the public, with distinctions in the categories of nature, sustainability, enology, religion, gastronomy, paleontology, culture, heritage and city of excellence.
