The Luxury Travel Bible - LUXURY TRAVEL: Royal Ascot

Royal Ascot will welcome the great and the good from Tuesday 19th until Saturday 23rd June 2018. The centrepiece of Ascot's racing calendar, Royal Ascot is first thought to have taken place at Ascot in 1768 and is now arguably the world's most famous race meeting.

The Royal Meeting now attracts the best horses and riders from across the globe. The 2018 Royal Meeting expects 509 horses from as far as USA and Australia to race during the five days.

Here are some of The Luxury Travel Bible’s favourite facts when it comes putting on the most prestigious event on the English social calendar…

Royal Ascot has a total prize money in excess of £7.3m across the five days. Around 300,000 guests are expected to attend the Royal Meeting this year with 70,000 racegoers attending Thursday's Gold Cup Day.

Royal Ascot is set to be broadcast in 200 countries around the globe with a reach of 650 million households.

To make Ascot look Royal-worthy, the dedicated grounds team will cultivate and bed-in more than 13,000 flowers and plants across the 179-acre racecourse especially for the event. Grass will be cut to a regulation 4 inches for the Flat season and 3 miles of bunting is to be installed.

Last year over 120,000 tweets were sent that mentioned Royal Ascot or #RoyalAscot, there were 19,430 Facebook Check-ins, 30,000 people downloaded the free Ascot App and there were 976,258 video views across social media.

Visitors to Royal Ascot will not be going hungry. 35,000 guests will enjoy Fine Dining or lunch service in a Private Box during the event and world-renowned chefs Raymond Blanc OBE, Phil Howard, Simon Rogan, Adam Handling and James Tanner are involved this year, boasting five Michelin stars and 13 AA Rosettes between them.

Fine Dining has always been an important ingredient of the Royal Ascot experience with 330 chefs, covering 12 restaurants, 17 private dining facilities and more than 200 private boxes. During the event 5,000kg of salmon, 5,000 Angus steaks and 2,400kg of beef sirloin, 7,000 rumps of English lamb, 3,500 fresh lobsters and 8,000 Cornish crabs will be served to diners.

Many Afternoon Teas will be served across all enclosures. Visitors will consume 240,000 hand-crafted cakes, 120,000 buttermilk scones, 80,000 cups of tea, 60,000 finger sandwiches and 1,200kg of Cornish clotted cream.

Royal Ascot will also host over 100 bars and food outlets serving a variety of cuisines and 33 live music acts will entertain the crowds between the horse racing.

After a bet or two visitors may wish to celebrate (or commiserate). During the five days 56,000 bottles of Champagne and 44,000 bottles of wine will be opened and 21,000 jugs of Pimm’s will be served.