The Grand Pacific Drive in Wollongong has won the Tourism Product Marketing award in the New South Wales Tourism Awards.

The 140km-long route, which was opened earlier this year, runs from the Royal National Park to Shoalhaven Heads and includes the 665m-long Sea Cliff Bridge at Stanwell Park.

Tourism Wollongong chair Jim Eddy said Grand Pacific Drive had generated an amazing amount of interest and publicity because it enabled Tourism Wollongong to showcase a stretch of coastline that had previously been overlooked as a tourist attraction.

"Locals have long regarded the route as one of the world's great ocean drives, but getting this wonderful new bridge has provided the focal point we needed to start promoting the route and the region it serves to rest of Australia and the world,” he said.

Tourism Wollongong’s sales and marketing and special projects manager, Kate Dombkins, was named winner of the Young Achiever in Tourism Award and Jamberoo Action Park, just south of Wollongong, picked up an encouragement award in the Significant Tourism Attraction category.

Photograph: Tourism Wollongong general manager Greg Binskin receiving the Grand Pacific Drive award and Kate Dombkins receiving her Young Achiever in Tourism Award