The purpose of this study is to examine the evolution and the determining factors of the poverty in Cartagena during the period 2002-2005. We used a probabilistic model (probit) to identify the individual characteristics that explain the incidence of the poverty in this city, the main Colombian tourist destiny and the most important industrial center of the Caribbean region. We analyze as well the vulnerability, understood like the possibility that the people can have a smaller consumption to the line of poverty in the future. The results indicate that the poverty by income has diminished in the city but continues affecting a significant proportion of the local population. The labor variables and of composition of the households (for example, the presence of children) are the most important to explain the incidence of the poverty in Cartagena. On the other hand, the vulnerability is bigger than the poverty, which represents a latent risk to make worse the condition of life of thousands of inhabitants of the city.