Machu Picchu voted South America's leading green destination

The Inca citadel of Machu Picchu in Peru has been voted as South America's Leading Green Destination 2010 at the recent 17th Annual World Travel Awards Ceremony in Jamaica.
Hailed by the Wall Street Journal as the “Travel Industry’s equivalent to the Oscars”, the World Travel Awards is the most comprehensive and most prestigious awards program of today’s global travel industry and involves a voting campaign of about 185,000 travel professionals worldwide.

Machu Picchu was chosen over other eight nominees that included Argentina's Patagonia; Guyana's Georgetown; Venezuela's Caracas; and Brazil's Abrolhos, Amazonas Tur, Fernando de Noronha, Manaus, and Pantanal.

"This award shows that Peru's tourism sector has a great impact on the economic, social and environmental development of the country," said Promperu's Tourism director Rocio Merino.

The ancient citadel, one of the new seven wonders of the world and a Unesco World Heritage Site, is considered to be one of the most extraordinary examples of scenic architecture in the world.

The city of Machu Picchu itself was built at the top of a granite mountain. The Incas, using ingenious engineering techniques, were able to transport heavy stone blocks up the mountain side, and once there, they used their excellent masonry skills to produce amazingly polished stones that fit together perfectly.