Cali´s Authorities Peevish Over Latest U.S. Travel Warning

Local authorities in Cali are clearly angry over the latest travel warning issued by the U.S. State Department that tries to deter American citizens from trekking to that Colombian city.

According to Foggy Bottom, the high levels of criminality in Cali –and in most of the South American nation- “pose a huge threat to the lives of U.S. citizens there,” the report indicates.

Top officials in Cali, for their part, are not only going the extra mile to show the city is safer now thanks to the implementation of several urban security plans aimed at improving tourism, but they are also demanding the federal government to hand in a diplomatic note to Washington, blasting the travel advisory.

“This travel warning is not only a bizarre and unmeasured insult to Cali, but also a token of profound lack of knowledge about the reality,” said Cali´s state secretary Miguel Yusti. “In 2005 we´ve posted the best record of the past eleven years in terms of criminal activity in the city.”

For Oscar Rueda Garcia, president of the National Association of Travel Agents and Tour Operators, the U.S. State Department´s insistence in branding Cali as a dangerous travel destination is both worrisome and extremely harmful to the local hospitality industry.