Battle of the cities: Auckland fires back after Wellington uses award to poke fun

Wellington took aim at Auckland after being voted the world's most liveable city but the City of Sails has fired back after winning big at the Sports Business Awards in London.

The Auckland versus Wellington debate raged on this week after it was announced that Wellington was voted the world's most liveable city by the Deutsche Bank for the second year in a row.

The city's tourism body made the most of the accolade by placing a tongue-in-cheek ad on the front page of the Herald telling Aucklanders not to let their award "knock the wind out of your sails".

While Wellington clearly has the Deutsche Bank's heart, Auckland has proven it trumps the capital city in at least one area - hosting world class sporting events.

Auckland sporting events won big at the prestigious annual Sports Business Awards on Friday night, proving Auckland's global reputation as a sports city.

The DHL New Zealand Lions Series 2017 Auckland fan activation and World Masters Games 2017 Auckland picked up gold and silver at the awards, which were held in London.

The Auckland fan activation for the DHL New Zealand Lions Series 2017 – including the Fanzone at Queens Wharf, regional Fanzones, and Auckland's famous Fan Trail between the waterfront and Eden Park – won the gold award for "Best Match (or Game) Day Experience".

Mayor of Auckland Phil Goff said Auckland was proud to receive further recognition of its ability to deliver world-class sporting events.

He said Auckland's hosting of the Lions Series and the Masters gave visitors a true taste of Auckland.

"It gave visitors a true taste of Auckland's unique cultural heritage, and our vibrant region, and captivated Aucklanders, who became avid supporters and welcoming hosts," Goff said.

"Sporting events make our city a more interesting and exciting place to live. The games attracted tens of thousands of competitors and spectators from around the world, and injected tens of millions into our regional economy," he said.

The Sports Business Awards 2018 accolade comes hot on the heels of Auckland being been named "Best Medium City" for the third consecutive time at the 2018 SportBusiness Ultimate Sports Cities Awards in April.

Auckland Tourism, Events & Economic Development (Ateed) chief executive Nick Hill said the Lions tour and the Masters allowed Auckland to show what it does best.

"The city gave a warm welcome to visitors here for these major events, whether spectators, competitors or officials, making them feel at home and hopefully return to visit us again.

"Aucklanders and New Zealanders embraced both events, which were delivered to an exceptional standard. We showed again that Auckland has the ability to organise some of the biggest and best sporting events in the world," Hill said.

The Herald ran a story that evaluated the debate from a tourism perspective.

Each city was scored on a number of categories; beaches, museums, weather, hotels, sport, beer, airports, cafes, restaurants, The Hobbit Factor, maunga and weird tourist oddity.

Wellington scored poorly on weather and beaches but received praise for its beer culture and national museum Te Papa.

The final scores were declared 83-79 to Auckland, obviously.