Young's National Cherry Festival picked for cash injection

Member for Cootamundra Steph Cooke said the grant application was easy to back thanks to the perfectly put together application submitted by Hilltops Tourism and Events Manager Mel Ford and Hilltops Destination Marketing and Events Officer Emma Hill.

"Having such strong applications makes the submissions easy for me to back up, so we really have to give a big thanks to Hilltops Tourism and to the National Cherry Festival committee," Ms Cooke said.

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“Every single year the festival attracts cherry lovers from far and wide, putting more heads on beds, diners in our restaurants and shoppers in our boutiques. I’m delighted that the Cherry Festival has secured a $20,000 NSW Government grant,” she said.

According to Hilltops Destination Marketing and Events Officer Emma Hill, the grant will help enormously to ensure that our 70^th annual Cherry Festival will be bigger and better than ever.

"We are so lucky to have behind us an amazing Cherry Festival committee who we thank for helping to secure the grant, and to our wonderful Member for Parliament Steph Cooke," Emma said.

Minister for Tourism and Major Events Adam Marshall congratulated the National Cherry Festival on their initiative which will help achieve the NSW Government’s goal of tripling overnight visitor expenditure and reaching $25 billion in regional visitor expenditure by 2030.

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“Our regional Flagship Events Program has allowed us to establish, market and develop events that give visitors more reasons to get out and see all that beautiful rural and regional NSW has to offer,” Mr Marshall said.

“We’re working hard right across our regions to make it easier for you to access vital grants to get your initiative off the ground and to get tourism booming more than ever before." The funding was announced outside the Young Visitor Information Centre on Tuesday afternoon.