Voting for the fourth regional heat of the 2013 Routes Airport Marketing Awards is now open and airlines from within the African region are being asked to consider the efficient use of marketing activities by an airport over the last 12 months when deciding who to nominate.

Winners of the awards, which recognise the marketing performance of airports within Africa, will be announced during the Routes Africa Networking Evening which will be held on Monday 8th July at the event in Kampala.

The annual Routes awards are highly regarded as the most valuable 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 as to which airport they think provides the best overall marketing services to them whether it be about their particular relationship, effective results, provision of data and information or innovative techniques to establish new or maintain and develop existing routes.

These much sought after awards are a great way for the winning airports to have a credible recognition which they can proudly talk about to their customers and other stakeholders. Kotoka International Airport, Accra was announced as the winner of last year’s African heat and speaking at the time John Arthur, Director, Commercial Services for Ghana Airports Company said: “This award means a lot to Ghana Airports Company. Over the years we have worked very hard to develop our air services and this spreads right through from our staff, board and the management. We really appreciate that we have been recognised for what we are doing and the value this award places on our business strategy.”

The Routes Africa Awards 2013 will see a number of new innovations for the event in Uganda which will be continued throughout the year at all other Routes events, culminating at World Routes in Las Vegas this October.

These innovations include a blended approach to the shortlisted airports where the final shortlist will include a number of airports who will be shortlisted using our online voting form together with a number of airports who have been shortlisted by a panel of industry experts drawn from the airline network planning community. This year will also see, for the first time at Routes Africa, the addition of a Destination Award for the best destination marketing campaign by a tourism authority.

Simply click here and log in to your Routesonline profile to nominate (in priority order) up to five airports in your network within the region, irrespective of their size. Voting will remain open until Friday 21st June 2013 and shortlisted airports will be announced shortly after this deadline.