adminFanuel Kangondo Deputy Lifestyle Editor
Zimbabwe on Tuesday walked away with the top Destination Marketing Award at the end of the annual Routes Middle East and Africa meeting in Bahrain shaking off stiff competition from other countries in the region.
Zimbabwe Tourism Authority won the accolade ahead of the Jordan Tourism Board and the Egyptian Tourism Authority at the gala dinner for presenting the best regional combined tourism marketing strategies.
The annual Routes Marketing Awards are highly regarded as the most prestigious awards in the travel 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.
With tourism regarded as one of the pillars of the country’s turnaround strategies under the economic blueprint Zim-Asset, the tourism stakeholders in Zimbabwe will be proud of this accomplishment.
In other categories, Dubai International Airport carried the day in the over 20+ million passenger airports while Madinah International got the prize for the 4-20 million passenger 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, South Africa, in September.
Online Reporter