Singapore Changi Airport was announced as the overall winner of the World Routes Marketing Awards at a ceremony last night (26 September) in Chengdu, China.

(Photo: https://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160927/412182 )The annual World Routes Marketing Awards recognise excellence in airport and destination marketing. Airlines vote for the marketing services that support the successful launch of new routes or the development of existing ones, making them highly regarded in the aviation industry.

Changi Airport is the sixth busiest airport in the world, handling a record 55 million passengers in 2015. The Asian hub was praised for seeking strategic partnerships with local governments, tourism boards and even other airports around the world to establish to develop tourism and traffic flows. It was also recognised for initiatives such as self-service transfers and fly-cruise models to diversify and sustain continued growth.

Ching Kiat Lim, managing director, air hub development of Changi Airport Group said: “We are very appreciative of winning this award which recognises all the efforts of our team and our airline partners without whom we wouldn’t be where we are today. We work hard to make our partnerships work and this is a great accolade to mark our continuous efforts to develop Changi Airport.

“Changi Airport has been and will always be committed to growing together with our family of airlines. We will continue to seek innovative ways of marketing our home, our air hub, and look forward to more exciting years ahead with our invaluable partners.”

In addition to the overall winner, the awards are judged in five categories. Changi Airport was also honoured in the ‘Over 50 Million Passengers’ category; Shannon Airport in the ‘Under 4 Million Passengers’ category; Athens International Airport in the ‘4 Million-20 Million Passengers’ category; Dublin Airport in the ’20 Million-50 Million Passengers’ category and Tourism and Events Queensland in the ‘Destination’ category.

Adrian Newton, group director at UBM EMEA, presented the awards. He said: “We’re delighted to mark the achievements of all of our nominated airports and destinations in our annual World Routes Marketing Awards. Year-on-year we are impressed by the calibre of the submissions.”

Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport has been hosting the World Routes 2016 aviation forum over the last four days. The awards ceremony took place at the New Century Global Center in Chengdu during the event’s Networking Evening.

Notes to Editors

The full list of shortlisted companies:

Overall winner

Singapore Changi Airport

Under 4 Million

Shannon Airport – winner

Cork Airport – highly commended

4-20 Million

Athens International Airport – winner

Auckland Airport – highly commended

20-50 Million

Dublin Airport – winner

Brussels Airport – highly commended

Over 50 Million

Singapore Changi Airport – winner

Amsterdam Airport Schiphol – highly commended

Destination

Tourism and Events Queensland – winner

Nassau Paradise Island Promotion Board – highly commended

The judging panel consisted of the following experts:

Ole Orver, SVP, Network Planning & Strategy, airberlinJohn Kirby, Vice President of Capacity, Alaska AirlinesJason Reisinger, Senior Manager, EMEA Network Planning, American AirlinesJuha Jarvinen, Chief Commercial Officer, FinnairAndrew Cowen, CEO, HK ExpressEyad Birouti, Director Fleet Network Planning, Royal Jordanian AirlinesJeroen Erdman, Head of Network Planning, TransaviaHope Antzoulatos, General Manager, Network Management, Virgin Australia

Image: Adrian Newton, group director at UBM EMEA (left) with the Singapore Changi Airport team.

Routes events are unique forums dedicated to the development of new air services. Five ‘regional’ route development forums are held between February and July in the Americas, Asia, Europe, Africa/Middle East and Silk Road/Russian Commonwealth, and the flagship World Routes event takes place in September. https://www.routesonline.com