On December 2, 2021, Purple Island was named a Best Tourism Village by UNWTO. In the initiative's first year, 75 member states nominated 174 villages and 44 villages in 32 countries received equal recognition. It was not a ranking that declared one world number one.
UNWTO's official profile records about 200,000 visits between August 2020 and July 2021, not 400,000 annual visitors. The recognition reflects a combination of resident participation, pedestrian links, landscape work, and conservation of local nature and culture.
UNWTO announced the inaugural list at its Madrid General Assembly. An independent advisory board evaluated nine areas, from cultural and natural resources through sustainability, governance, infrastructure, health, and safety. The recognition was not a UN World Heritage inscription and did not prove that every resident benefited equally. This story shares a coordinate with Story 7 but asks a different question: Story 7 examines how the landscape was made; this one examines the international procedure and the limits of what recognition proves.