Brits vote Sydney their favourite overseas city

NSW Minister for Tourism and Major Events, George Souris, said Sydney has beaten tough competition from cities including, New York and Paris to take out the coveted and influential award.

“Winning this latest award demonstrates Sydney’s continuing appeal to visitors across the United Kingdom. With its mix of world class events, cultural activities, stunning natural attractions and top-end food and shopping, Sydney continues to engage its visitors,” Mr Souris said.

“Recognition at these awards will further raise our profile among potential travellers and will help the State Government fulfil its goal of doubling expenditure within the state’s visitor economy by 2020,” Mr Souris said.

The latest Conde Nast Traveller award comes in a long list of international honours Sydney has collected over the last 18 months, including top Australasian city for the 17th time in the recent Travel+Leisure Awards; number one city in the Condé Nast Traveller USA Readers’ Choice Awards; Lonely Planet’s World Best Summer City award; TripAdvisor’s number one South Pacific destination; and World’s Best Festival and Major Events City by the International Festival and Events Association.

CEO Destination NSW, Sandra Chipchase, said that Sydney was well deserving of the top spot in this latest awards win.

“Conde Nast Traveller UK readers rated Sydney on its ambience, friendliness, accommodation, restaurants, culture, sight-seeing and shopping,” Ms Chipchase said.

“Travellers continue to love Sydney for our iconic attractions, the beauty of our natural environment, our unsurpassed lifestyle and outstanding calendar of major events. It’s easy to see why the city is regularly voted by travellers as the best Australian city to visit,” Ms Chipchase said.

The UK is one of New South Wales’ largest international tourism markets worth more than $557 million to the NSW economy in overnight and day trip spending. NSW receives 313,600 overnight visitors from United Kingdom annually making it the third largest market for international visitation.

Full results of the Awards will be published in the October issue of Conde Nast Traveller UK.