Sydney Royal Easter Show has been crowned best major festival and special event at the 2006 Qantas Travel and Tourism Awards, held on 23 February.

The event top a list of finalists including the 2006 Commonwealth Games, the Gold Coast Lexmark Indy 300 and the Clipsal 500 Adelaide.

Organised by the Royal Agricultural Society of NSW (RAS) since 1823, the Sydney Royal Easter Show is Australia’s oldest annual event celebrating excellence in Australian agriculture and conveys a strong sense of Australian culture, heritage and identity. It incorporates Australian life, both past and present and showcases the real Australia to locals and visiting internationals alike.

2006 was the first year the RAS proactively marketed the Show to an international market led by an inaugural launch into Hong Kong.

John Aitken, general manager, events and marketing, said: “With such tough competition from other state finalists, this is a great coup for the RAS.

“The support of Tourism NSW has been instrumental in our success in taking the Show to New Zealand, Hong Kong, China, Korea and now Singapore.

“We have plans to extend our tourism push into many more markets targeting both leisure and business tourism that will see our economic impact for NSW increase dramatically from an already impressive AUS$462m per annum.”

He added: “Some may be surprised that the show was awarded ahead of established international events such as the Commonwealth Games and Lexmark Indy. Being an annual celebration, those who have grown up with the show sometimes take it for granted, with many Sydneysiders having not attended since our move from Moore Park. Perhaps this accolade will help rekindle their interest as we also see many thousands of tourists travelling half way around the world to come to the show.”