ROUTES MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA NAMES ZIMBABWE AS ‘BEST MARKETERS’
(Posted 03rd June 2015)
It was Zimbabwe’s moment at the just ended ‘Routes Middle East & Africa’ meeting in Bahrain, when at the closing night’s Gala Dinner the regional award winners for 2015 were announced.
Named as the winner of the Destination Marketing Award did the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority beat the Jordan Tourism Board and the Egyptian Tourist Authority in the race for the annual top spot of the combined regions’ best tourism marketing strategies.
The annual Routes Marketing Awards are highly regarded as among the most prestigious awards in the industry as they are voted for and judged by the airline network planning community. They provide the airline community with the chance to have their say, regarding the airport or tourism authority they think has provided the best overall services to them relating to route development and marketing over the past year, to establish new or maintain and develop existing routes. No doubt will the tourism stakeholders in Zimbabwe be proud of this accomplishment.
In other categories did Dubai International Airport deservedly carry the day in the over 20+ million passenger airports while Madinah International got the prize for the 4 – 20 million category.
The under 4 million choices were however not universally welcomed as runner up Entebbe is regularly ranked by passengers, the main users, as one of the worst in the East African region, while the airport in Kigali did not even make it into the top five, a travesty of sorts.
All of the winners in Bahrain will have another chance to make it to the top of the world rankings at the upcoming ‘World Routes’ meeting in Durban in September.
Did a Routes in clarification to the process of determining their winners state: ‘The shortlisted finalists were nominated by airline network planners; a respected panel of judges, comprising senior members of the airline network planning community from the region, reviewed the lists and submissions from the nominated airports in order to determine the winners’.
