Analyzing Royal Melbourne Show: A Hallmark Event and Tourism Linkages

This essay examines the Royal Melbourne Show as a hallmark event, focusing on its unique features and significant relationship with tourism. The Royal Melbourne Show, an agricultural fair running since 1848, is analyzed as a prime example of an event that attracts tourists and boosts the local economy. The essay highlights the show's ability to cater to diverse interests, including families, sports enthusiasts, and shoppers, by offering a wide range of activities such as animal displays, amusement park rides, sports competitions, and shopping pavilions. The event also emphasizes local community involvement and promotes ecotourism through interactions with animals and displays of local produce. By providing a unique and immersive experience, the Royal Melbourne Show enhances the attractiveness of the host country, generates commercial value, and receives extensive media coverage, solidifying its status as a hallmark tourism event.

Running head: HALLMARK EVENT
Hallmark Event
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

2HALLMARK EVENT
A hallmark event is one that is very special and unique in its own way. It mainly includes
events like that of fairs, sports, floral and garden displays, racing carnivals, sports and many
other such events. These events are usually taking place on a fixed time period and on a fixed
time of the year. They take place either on a regular or on and off basis. The term hallmarks
show that it has something very unique and something very original that helps it to stand out
from the rest of the events. These hallmark events are ones which help the host country to get
some large-scale recognition and fame, particularly in the tourism industry. These events help in
enhancing the economic status of the host country on one hand and also boost up the tourism
sector as well. These events usually have the widespread involvement of the local communities
and also many people coming from all the places around the world. These hallmark events that
are held in particular tourist spots helps in increasing the attractiveness of that place in the eyes
of the tourists. This, in turn, helps in increasing the overall flow of finance into the host country
and the tourism industry as well. These hallmark events are the ones that usually have some very
special interest both for the tourists or the visitors and the participants as well. One such major
hallmark event is the Royal Melbourne Show (Royal Melbourne Show 2018). This show is
mainly an agricultural fair that is aimed at displaying the agricultural products of the rural
farmlands of Australia. This hallmark event is conducted by the Agricultural Society of Victoria.
This event has been running for the year 1848.
The tourism industry is also greatly benefitted by this agricultural event as it is successful
in attracting a large number of tourists almost every single year. This is because the Royal
Melbourne Show is a great platform for tourists of different interest. It is a very tourist friendly
show that helps in promoting the overall welfare of the tourists. The organizers give a huge
importance to the local community in this particular event. Major items of the display at this fair

3HALLMARK EVENT
are the agricultural products like the livestock and the produce (Garforth 2015). As a result of
which the local farmers are able to take part in this show and can display their animals like pigs,
cows, hens, dogs and many other such kinds. Apart from the animals, there are also many other
game and rides set up for people of all ages. There are also many animal themed rides that help
in attracting the attention of the children. One of the great advantages of this show is that it can
easily target the customers belonging from different segments. One of the greatest segments is
that of the children. Children are usually very fond of animals and also of the amusement parks.
Apart from this exciting and colorful rides are something that has been one of the major
attractions of children. Not only the children but even the teenagers, the young adults and the
adults are largely attracted to the exciting rides. One can find widespread animal shaped rides
like the madhouse roller coaster.
It is evident that all the amount of tourists who will be visiting this place will include the
families with children. Recreation is one of the major segments of tourism and one can hardly
find a place better than the Royal Melbourne Show for fulfilling this purpose. Apart from this,
there is also a large scope for the sports lovers to come and explore. They can witness and also
take part in many of the competitions that take place in this hallmark event (Garforth 2015). One
of the major features of the hallmark event is that it will provide something to the tourists that are
much unique in nature and gives the tourists a golden lifetime experience. In other normal tourist
spots, the sports lovers might not get to enjoy such a thrilling and exciting sports experience.
However, this hallmark event will give them a lifetime experience where they can take part and
also explore the large variety of the competition (Todd et al. 2017). These competitions are
mainly the animal fights. The sports-loving and adventure loving tourists may get to witness the
animal competitions like the horse fighting a bullfighting These are the most commonly seen and

4HALLMARK EVENT
the posh animal fighting competitions that are available in the city sides. However, the
Melbourne Show will provide them a new and innovative experience where they will get to see
the rural animal competitions as well. Some of the competitions are beef cattle, dairy cattle,
poultry competitions and many other such domestic animal competitions as well. So, this is
definitely a lifetime experience for all the tourists in general and the sports lover in particular.
Apart from these, there are a large number of shopping grounds as well (Wee et al. 2017). There
are a large number of pavilions and arenas that helps the customers to have a royal and exquisite
shopping experience (Royal Melbourne Show 2018). The tourists can save a huge amount of
time, energy, and money of traveling to many other places like the shopping malls and the fruit
and vegetable markets for buying different products for themselves. There are pavilions where
the customers can take a walk and easily see and buy the products of their choice. One of the
pristine and vest experience that the tourists can have here is they can check the production
process for themselves. They will not be worried about the quality of the products that they are
purchasing (Royal Melbourne Show 2018). They will be able to see for themselves how the local
farmers are producing the products like wine and cheese. These consumer goods are brought
straight from the nearby local farmlands and as a result of this; the consumers get fresh, naturally
pure and 100% fresh products. The tourists will surely prefer the pavilions of the Royal
Melbourne Show for having buying their products rather than going to so many other shopping
spots. Food and beverages are one of the major concerns of the hospitality industry. It is the
prime duty of the tourist organizations to make sure that their clients are getting the maximum
possible comforts at the places where they are visiting (Hernández-Mogollón et al. 2014). One of
the major attraction and advantages of this hallmark event is that the tourists get a one-stop
breakfast, lunch and dinner outlets at the pavilions of the Royal Melbourne Show. Among the

5HALLMARK EVENT
many pavilions, the Woolworth fresh food pavilions are one where the tourists can get a taste of
both the local and the international tastes as well (Frost 2014). They can get a large amount of
food like the freshly made sushi, gourmet donuts, artisan ice creams and many other such items.
At the same time, all the food products will be made from the fresh local products produced by
the farmlands. The revenue earned from these sales will help in promoting the economic
condition of the local farmers and in turn the financial condition of the country as well (Getz
2014). The tourism industry needs to provide a good recreation to the tourists (Drucker 2016).
Ecotourism is one of the major aspects that are promoted by the Melbourne show.
The animals are the stars of this hallmark event. The tourist might vet to see many
animals in other tourist spots as well but most of them will be kept in some protected areas like
the natural wildlife sanctuaries. The tourists will be restricted from touching or petting the
animals of their choice. However, it is at this hallmark event that the animals will be kept
scattered all over the ground across the corner of the field and the tourist can easily touch them
and play with them with ease. There are about 10,000 animals spread all over the ground for a
stretch of about 11 days. The caretakers of the animals will be close by to assist the tourists and
they can easily play with the animals. This gives the tourists a nostalgic experience. They might
be able to recollect the times of their childhood when they were kids and used to pat a cow, a
baby lamb or some duck or any other such animals of their choice (Kim et al. 2015). The tourists
can also feed the animals with grass and take close pictures with them that will help them cherish
the memories for a very long time. There is a place called the farmhouse where the tourists can
easily get the lifetime experience of milking the cows for themselves. This is educational in
nature as there will be many interactive activities as well (Zhou 2015). Tourists who have
farmland business of their own like cattle farming will be benefitted from this. This event also

6HALLMARK EVENT
generates a large scale commercial value as well. There is a wood chop pavilion as well that
helps the tourists to see the art of wood chopping competitions. This might be of good use to the
people having dealings in wood and wooden furniture. People with a creative end of min can
also find a lot of interesting things at this event. There are tourists who are painters, bakers,
craftsmen. There are several shows where the tourists can see thousands of creative items like
bakery, crafts, cookery and many other such items. So, the tourists can actually enjoy and also
get to learn many things. One of the major aspects of tourism is the amalgamation of the national
and international tourists. This not only helps to give a boost to the tourism industry but also to
the place or the host community. It also brings in huge media coverage as well. The activities
that are included in this Royal Melbourne Show provide sufficient means of entertainment for
tourists all across the globe. This a place of mass tourist attraction, ranging from the local
community to the national and the international level as well. Media will naturally focus on those
places that will be able to attract the attention of such a large number of tourists from all the
segments and all the corners of the world. As media will reach to cover the hallmark event, the
tourist appeal of the place will naturally increase a lot. The Royal Melbourne show gets a huge
media coverage and it is or this treason that tourists living far across the place get a good
knowledge. This hallmark event is very unique in its own kind. They primarily display the rural
agricultural productions but make sure that it is just not restricted only within the local
communities (Beek and Go 2017). They provide a huge platform to the local people so that they
can boost their financial conditions and can display their skills and their productions on the
national and international platforms. Apart from this, this event can be rightfully called a
hallmark event as it does not only focus on the recreation and the food segments of the tourism
and the hospitality sectors but they provide a global platform for people to display their talents

7HALLMARK EVENT
and their skills in fields of bakery, cookery, crafts and any other creative activities. They also
provide a very good platform, the Spotlight Makers Pavilion, for the kids and the learners that is
the students of schools and colleges for getting then first-time hands-on experience in many
things like the cake decorating, cooking and other such stuff. They can also make their own
handmade items (Royal Melbourne Show 2018).
Thus, the Royal Melbourne Show can be termed rightfully as a hallmark tourism event as
it provides a great boost to the people of the local community and the also the tourists coming
from the national and the international levels as well. The tourists keep on coming back to this
show because they get all-around satisfaction. They not only get the recreational pleasure but
also educational and knowledgeable experiences as well. As the tourists keep on coming back
every year, the media coverage also increases. This, in turn, makes the event more popular
among tourists. As the number of tourists keeps on increasing every year, the flow of fund also
increases and thus, the organizers can upgrade and develop themselves further. The tourism
companies will also utilize this opportunity to give their clients very new and lifetime experience
of a hallmark event.

8HALLMARK EVENT
References
Beek, R.M. and Go, F., 2017. Legacy of Hallmark Events: Cross-Cultural Analysis Among
Emerging Destinations. In Global Innovation and Entrepreneurship (pp. 273-314). Palgrave
Macmillan, Cham.
Drucker, P., 2016. The effective executive. Routledge.
Frost, W., 2014. Events and tourism. In The Routledge handbook of events (pp. 91-102).
Routledge.
Garforth, C., 2015. Livestock keepers' reasons for doing and not doing things which
governments, vets and scientists would like them to do. Zoonoses and public health, 62(s1),
pp.29-38.
Garibaldi, R., Pozzi, A. and Viani, E., 2016. Food, art and tourism as a boost for innovation:
successful experiences from Italy. In ATLAS Annual Conference 2016-" Tourism, Lifestyles and
Locations" (pp. 61-65).
Getz, D. and Page, S.J., 2016. Progress and prospects for event tourism research. Tourism
Management, 52, pp.593-631.
Getz, D., 2014. The forms and functions of planned events: past and future. In The Future of
Events & Festivals (pp. 44-59). Routledge.
Hernández-Mogollón, J.M., Folgado-Fernández, J.A. and Duarte, P.A.O., 2014. Event tourism
analysis and state of the art. European Journal of Tourism, Hospitality and Recreation, 5(2),
pp.83-102.

9HALLMARK EVENT
Kim, W., Jun, H.M., Walker, M. and Drane, D., 2015. Evaluating the perceived social impacts of
hosting large-scale sport tourism events: Scale development and validation. Tourism
Management, 48, pp.21-32.
Nordvall, A. and Heldt, T., 2017. Understanding hallmark event failure: a case study of a
Swedish music festival. International Journal of Event and Festival Management, 8(2), pp.172-
185.
Royal Melbourne Show. 2018. Pavilions & Precincts | Royal Melbourne Show. [online]
Available at: https://royalshow.com.au/attractions/pavilions-precincts/ [Accessed 7 Apr. 2018].
Royal Melbourne Show. 2018. Things to Do | Royal Melbourne Show. [online] Available at:
https://royalshow.com.au/attractions/art-craft-cookery/things-to-do/ [Accessed 7 Apr. 2018].
Royal Melbourne Show. 2018. Winning Tastes Pavilion | Royal Melbourne Show. [online]
Available at: https://royalshow.com.au/tastes/winning-tastes-pavilion/ [Accessed 7 Apr. 2018].
Todd, L., Leask, A. and Ensor, J., 2017. Materialities, Memories, and Lived Event Tourism
Experiences. Critical Tourism Studies Proceedings, 2017(1), p.16.
Wee, H., Mahdzar, M., Hamid, Z.A., Shariff, F.M., Chang, F. and Ismail, W.N.H.M., 2017.
Sustainable Event Tourism: Evidence of Practices and Outcomes Among Festival
Organizers. Advanced Science Letters, 23(8), pp.7719-7722.
Zhou, X., 2015. Expectations of Sport Event Tourism Experiences.