Auckland’s sports event reputation gets another boost

Auckland has been shortlisted for the SportBusiness Ultimate Sports Cities Awards for the first time, reinforcing Auckland’s global reputation for hosting international sporting events.

Auckland features alongside great international sporting cities including London, Melbourne, Sydney, New York, Singapore, Berlin, Paris, Tokyo, Dubai, Rio de Janeiro, Moscow and Kuala Lumpur.

Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development (ATEED) General Manager Destination & Marketing, Rachael Carroll, says the nomination is timely, with Auckland currently hosting a busy summer of exciting sporting events – reinforcing that the show never stops in Auckland.

“We’ve had the highly successful ASB Classic and Heineken Open tennis events and this weekend the world’s best triathletes will race on a stellar Auckland course for the Ironman 70.3 Auckland Asia Pacific Championship,” she says.

In February Auckland will welcome the inaugural Dick Smith NRL Auckland Nines to Eden Park and the summer will round off with the ITU World Series and the ITM 500 Auckland (V8 Supercars) in April.

The nomination for the SportBusiness Ultimate Sports City Awards follows Auckland being named in the top three sporting cities in the world for the second year in a row at the 2013 International Sports Event Management (ISEM) Awards.

ATEED’s 2013/14 major events portfolio includes 35 events. The highly successful 2012/13 major events season, brought in a return on investment of $39.1 million and generated 290,000 visitor nights.

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