Nestled in Colombia’s abundant Aburrá Valley is the city of eternal spring: Medellín, a destination that calls itself a place where everything blooms. No time of year is this more true than during the annual Feria de las Flores, a ten-day festival celebrating to the city’s generations-long legacy of cultivating some of the world’s most sought-after flowers.
Blooming, too, is the festival’s tourism potential. Feria de las Flores is attracting an ever-growing number of foreign visitors, with an estimated 28% year-over-year growth in international visitors for what is one of the country’s most important celebrations. This year’s festival felt bigger, busier and more beautiful than ever; considering Medellín’s burgeoning profile with international travelers, it’s now poised to be one of the most popular draws to the city.
Decades of Tradition
The cultivation and export of flowers has long been one of the most important industries in Colombia, but the best of the bunch always stay closer to home. The mountains to the east of Medellín, specifically around the area of Santa Elena, are topographically favorable for growing every type of flower under the sun, many of which now end up in the United States and Europe year-round.
For many years, farmers known as silleteros would carry flowers down the mountain on silletas, similar to chairs or ladders, and into the city to sell. The tradition was first honored with a simple parade in 1957. Sixty-eight years later, the tradition is just as strong, with only the traditional silletero families participating in the celebration’s culminating event to display their creations.
The pride of Santa Elena’s silletero families is palpable, with everyone from young children to grandmothers and grandfathers tracing the route of the culminating parade carrying their creations on their backs. The size and creativity of the displays, too, are impressive, with some weighing well over one hundred pounds.
The love local observers for the tradition may be just as inspirational, as they cheer on tired silleteros and even offer them drinks along the parade route. Prizes are awarded to silleteros in a variety of categories prior to the culminating parade, and silletas trace the route with their ribbons pinned to them with pride.
Bigger and Better
Now, the celebration extends far beyond a single parade. This year, Feria de las Flores consisted of a record number of 200 official parades, parties and celebrations stretching across ten days. This represents just a portion of the activities in the city, with countless businesses, tour operators and locals sponsoring their own activities ranging from concerts and tours to parties, food tastings and more.
Amidst so many options, a few stand out as can’t-miss experiences. Of course, the culminating parade, the Desfile de los Silleteros, is the most highlighted event. Though the event is free to attend, many locals line up early in the morning for a mid-afternoon start time to score the best seats along the parade route. Tickets to sit in the bleachers that line much of the parade route are highly coveted, so much so that some people go as far as to make fake tickets.
In the days leading up to the parade, most visitors will also want to take the 45-minute drive into the mountains to visit one of the silletero farms in Santa Elena. The experience is a memorable one, complete with sweeping views overlooking the city, homemade Colombian food, and an unparalleled look into local life and tradition that feels profoundly special. It also provides important context for the rest of the festival’s celebrations.
There are plenty of other activities that make the city feel more alive than ever during the festival. Heading out in the evening on a chiva, a colorful party bus that travels throughout the city, is one of the most popular ways to celebrate.
However, those who are less party-minded will love other events like the Classic Car Parade, and should plan on visiting the oversized flower displays that decorate the city. This year, a massive display of flowers was set up in the Centro Comercial Santafé nearly a month before the festival even began, an exemplary highlight among many must-see sights around the city.
The Feria de las Flores Experience
The festival’s length and diversity of celebrations is part of what makes it so immensely attractive for travelers. Visitors have the luxury of enjoying multiple events across a number of days, taking in the full start-to-finish experience in a way that feels closer to cultural engagement and less like attending a one-off show.
The experience is now so beloved that many local tour operators create entire packages centered around the festival over a number of days. With the rising popularity of many of the events, especially the culminating parade, tour operators are now almost the exclusive providers of tickets, though the ways to engage with the festivities grow every year.
The city’s efforts to draw visitors to their biggest and brightest celebration are certainly working. Preliminary figures provided by the city’s tourism board, the Bureau de Medellín, suggest that this year’s celebration was the most attended on record. At Medellín’s José María Córdova International Airport, there were 65,581 international arrivals during the Feria de las Flores alone, a highest-ever figure that exceeds the previous year’s tally by a whopping 27.2%.
It comes just as Colombia celebrates a banner year of tourism growth across the board. The country welcomed an estimated 7.06 million visitors last year, representing a 14.3% increase over the previous year and surpassing pre-pandemic tourism levels by an astonishing 36.3%.
El Parche en Medellín
As the city winds down from this year’s festivities, it feels like there’s little time to rest. Medellín’s tourism figures have shown remarkable growth every month so far this year, with a 13.22% year-over-year increase in international arrivals in July, before the Feria de las Flores even began.
“I like to say we’re in the renaissance of Colombia,” says Juliana Medina, native of Cartagena and founder of Impulse Travel, an award-winning destination management company operating across Colombia. To experience the city, and country, in all its bloom certainly feels special.