Last night during an impressive networking evening which took place on the stunning Lakeside Pool Lawns of the Speke Resort, which sits right on Lake Victoria, Uganda, Kilimanjaro International Airport was announced as winner of the African heat of this year’s Routes Airport Marketing Awards.
Over 300 aviation professionals were gathered to witness the presentation of the awards and to take part in the 8th Routes Africa – the largest route development event for the entire African region, which this year is hosted by the Civil Aviation Authority of Uganda and Entebbe International Airport.
“This has been one of the most amazing evenings for us at Kilimanjaro International Airport to win this award,” said Christine Mwakatobe, Business Development Manager, Kilimanjaro Airports Development Company, after collecting the award, continuing: “We would like to thank all of the airlines that serve the airport for voting for us in this process and we are pledging our commitment 
that we will keep working hand-in-hand with all of our partners. Thank you for trusting in us and believing in us and giving us this wonderful opportunity to show the rest of Africa what we are doing at Kilimanjaro International Airport.”
The Routes Airport Marketing Awards have become synonymous with recognising and rewarding the highest standards of marketing activities undertaken by airports. The 2013 awards will see a number of innovations including taking a blended approach to the nomination process, meaning the final nominees will include a number of airports who will be shortlisted using our online voting form together with a number of airports who have been selected by a panel of industry experts drawn from the airline network planning community. This year the awards were split into two categories based on the size of the airport and also a new tourism award for best destination marketing campaign by a tourism authority.
“We would like to congratulate all of the winners and highly commended airports and tourism authorities in this regional heat of the 2013 awards. Kilimanjaro International Airport has delivered true route development results,” said Nigel Mayes VP Commercial – Routes, UBM Live explaining: “Launching three new international airlines, Qatar Airways, Kenya Airways and Turkish Airlines, in the last year is a fantastic achievement along with delivering on a clear air service development strategy which was set out three years ago.”
Kilmanjaro were also named as the winner from the Under 4 Million Passengers category with Nairobi – Jomo Kenyatta International Airport ranked top from the Over 4 Million Passengers category and the Destination Marketing Award went to Seychelles Tourism Board.
The full list of companies shortlisted under each award category were as follows:
Over 4 Million Passengers
Nairobi – Jomo Kenyatta International Airport – Winner
Casablanca – Mohammed V International Airport – Highly Commended
Addis Ababa – Bole International Airport
Algiers – Houari Boumediene Airport
Cairo International Airport
Under 4 Million Passengers
Kilimanjaro International Airport – Winner & Overall Winner
Dar es Salaam – Julius Nyerere International Airport – Highly Commended
Accra – Kotoka International Airport
Luanda – Quatro de Fevereiro Airport
Maputo International Airport
Destination Marketing Award
Seychelles Tourism Board – Winner
Tourism KwaZulu-Natal – Highly Commended
Mozambique Tourism Authority
Zambia Tourism Board
Zimbabwe Tourism Authority
As overall winner of this regional heat, Kilimanjaro International Airport will be automatically shortlisted for the World Routes Airport Marketing Awards which will take place at the event in Las Vegas, 5-8 October 2013. Kilimanjaro join San Diego International Airport, Changi Airport Group and Munich Airport who were announced as overall winners of the Americas, Asia and Europe heats respectively, earlier in the year.