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• BIG EVENT: Ulladulla’s Blessing of the Fleet Festival draws huge crowds to the region and in the past has attracted state government funding because of its importance as a major tourism event, yet it and other events being held in the Milton Ulladulla region were not included in a publication to promote the state’s major events.

THE Milton Ulladulla region might be a hub for tourism and festivals, but it seems to have fallen off the state government’s radar.

The latest Sydney and NSW Events Calender, covering the period from September 2013 to June 2014, has just been released, but there is no mention of the many events taking place in Milton Ulladulla in that time.

The Blessing of the Fleet Festival, Timber Festival, Scarecrow Festival and ARTfest have all been excluded from the major publication, which is intended to showcase the state’s many attractions and events.

As he launched the calendar last week, NSW Tourism Minister George Souris highlighted the publication’s importance to regional events.

“Destination NSW estimates the Sydney and NSW Events Calendar will inject more than $500 million into the NSW economy from visitor expenditure,” he said.

“The number of regional events are particularly impressive this year and an important contributor to regional tourism,” Mr Souris said.

“These events attract visitors from across the state, Australia and overseas and give visitors a unique perspective on some of NSW’s rich network of regional towns.”

Yet that perspective, and promotion of events vital to the Milton Ulladulla region’s economy and employment, is missing.

While Mr Souris hailed the guide as leading to a direct cash and visitation injection into the events it listed and publicised, Destination NSW was quick to back away from the guide’s importance.

A Destination NSW spokesperson said the guide was “designed to encourage people to look online and discover more about the huge array of fantastic events in NSW”.

“Due to the booklet’s size (A6) this printed calendar is only able to provide a small representation of the more than 3000 events taking place in NSW during any particular year,” the spokesperson added.

“Regional events listed in the booklet have been mainly selected from events that fall under the NSW government’s Regional Flagship Event program and which are listed online. 

“Regional Tourism Organisations (such as South Coast) send regular event updates to Destination NSW to be added to the website listings.”

The spokesperson said the South Coast was “well represented for events on visitnsw.com, with more than 250 listings. There are currently seven events listed for Milton and Ulladulla including the Blessing of the Fleet Festival.”

However acting Shoalhaven tourism manager Joe Puglisi said the way local events had been excluded from the guide was “really disappointing”.

He questioned who made the decisions not to include events sent from the regional tourism organisation, who decided what were major events, and how the Blessing of the Fleet Festival in particular did not get a mention, seeing it had previously been presented with state tourism awards.

The only Shoalhaven events that were included in the guide were the 20th Hobie 16 World Championships at Huskisson from January 31 to February 15, and the Shoalhaven Coast Winter Wine Festival from June 7 to 9.