The annual Routes Europe Marketing Awards took place at Hannover’s Herrenhausen’s Garden yesterday. These are highly prestigious awards for recognizing marketing activities in the Aviation Industry undertaken by various airports and tourism boards for launching new flight routes and services. The participating airlines are responsible for the nominations and selection of the winners of these awards.
Budapest Airport stands out as the overall winner in the 4-20 million passengers category. The passenger footfall for this airport has increased by 13.5 percent in 2018, a total of 18 new routes have been introduced across 12 new destinations between Aril 2018 to April 2019. These include direct flights to Philadelphia operated by American Airlines and new flights to New York, Chicago and London operated by LOT Polish Airlines.
The award was given to Budapest Airport in recognition of its marketing activities of destination focused campaigns, convening trading events, social media campaigns and sending regular news letters to journalists and bloggers to enhance its existing flight routes and services.
Billund Airport also figured out as a winner in the under 4 million passenger category, this is the ninth consecutive year for this airport to bag this ward and the recorded passenger footfall for the year 2018 surpassed the previous year’s 3.5 million mark. The new destinations added last year are Athens, Bergen, Vienna, Lisbon, Vienna and Warsaw.
Billund invested 6 million Euros in incentives to increase its new routes and services. The airport also arranged 40 meetings and site visits which resulted in 9 new flight routes for 2019, 21 new flights on 5 existing routes. These marketing initiatives helped Billund Airport to be elected as a winner in the under 4 million passengers category.
Athens International Airport wins the award for passenger foot fall over 20 million, 24.1 million is the exact count for the year 2018, a rise of 11% compared to previous year. The 62 new routes and welcomed 4 new airlines. The airport was able to secure more than 62 new routes and 4 new airline additions (Volotea, Ellinair, Ryanair and Aegean) in 2018. Apart from new airline additions, 13 airlines also enhanced their existing routes.
Athens’ incentive scheme was open to visiting carriers and home-based carriers, the airport reportedly spent 3.5 m Euros as part of its marketing effort to increase the flight routes and services.
The destination marketing award was one by Vienna Tourist Board which recorded more than 16.5 million overnight stays in 2018, an increase of 6.3 % compared to the year 2017.
The Vienna Tourist Board has undertaken various marketing campaigns to boost tourism. Some of them include hosting grand gala dinner to promote the new Shenzhen-Vienna flights with Hainan Airlines and organizing business breakfast for selected media and trade partners.
Budapest Airport now has a chance to compete for the title of overall winner at the World Marketing Awards which will take place in Adelaide on 23rd September.
