WestJet has won a prestigious World Travel Market 2015 World Travel Leaders Award in recognition of its excellent levels of customer service whilst continuing to expand their global brand.
The airline received the coveted award today (Tuesday 3 November) at the WTM World Travel Leaders Award ceremony. The award was presented by managing editor and publisher at Canadian Travel Press, Mike Baginski and was collected by Louis Gosselin, business development manager, WestJet and Mark Mullord, UK executive director, WestJet.
The Awards give WTM London’s Official Media Partners – which represent key travel industry media around the world – an excellent platform to congratulate and recognise those companies and individuals that have made significant and ground-breaking contributions to travel and tourism in their region or sector.
Three nominations from each of WTM’s media partners were judged in September by a panel of three, consisting of an independent body, a representative of WTM and the relevant media partner.
WestJet – comprising of WestJet Airlines, WestJet Encore and WestJet Vacations – only started 19 years ago in Western Canada and has become the country’s second airline company (after Air Canada). The company has rapidly grown and has recently spread its wings to trans-Atlantic travel launching flights to Dublin last year and to Glasgow this past summer, whilst a flight to Gatwick is scheduled for 2016.
In August 2015, WestJet took a major step in continuing its European expansion with the delivery of the first of four Boeing 767-300 extended range aircraft. This will allow it to serve Europe and other regions of the world on a non-stop basis with WestJet stating it will “Usher in a new era in the airline’s history.” The inaugural wide-body flights will begin in early September, 2015.
But it is not for their global expansion that WestJet are best known, but for its unique customer service. Two years ago it hit the headlines when it hired Santa to casually ask passengers what they wanted for Christmas when they boarded their WestJet flight. The presents they had asked for were waiting for them on the baggage carousel upon arrival.
Other innovative and quirky ideas the company is responsible for include annual April Fools jokes and, rather than boarding people based on seat numbers, choosing a random category such as sock colour.
Its dedicated and unique customer service along with its important development and expansion led to the judges saying: “We were impressed by the range of innovation and memorable brand marketing initiatives. It has extended its Global reach whilst retaining their very personal levels of customer service.”
Every year, World Travel Leaders Awards are presented at WTM London. The full list of 2015 winners is:
Canada: WestJet
Spain: Loro Parque Fundacion
Italy: Trenitalia
Brazil: Mr. Eloi D’Avila De Oliveira – Founder of Flytour group
Portugal: Vila Gale Hotels
Russia: Bronevik.com
India: roomsXML Solutions Limited
China: World Tourism Cities Federation (WTCF)
Travolution: Gareth Williams
USA: Arthur Frommer
TTG: G Adventures
Middle East: Air Arabia
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About World Travel Market London
WTM London, the leading global event for the travel industry, is the must-attend four-day business-to-business exhibition for the worldwide travel and tourism industry.
Almost 51,500 senior travel industry professionals, government ministers and international press, embark on ExCeL – London every November to network, negotiate and discover the latest industry opinion and trends at WTM.
WTM London, now in its 36th year, is the event where the travel industry conducts and concludes its deals. WTM 2014 will generate around £2.5 billion of travel industry contracts.
WTM London is part of Reed Travel Exhibition’s World Travel Market events, which also includes Arabian Travel Market, World Travel Market Latin America and World Travel Market Africa. www.wtmworld.com
World Travel Market Events
World Travel Market is comprised of the leading leisure travel events in the world; World Travel Market London, WTM Latin America in Sao Paulo, WTM Africa in Cape Town and Arabian Travel Market in Dubai.
New events for 2016 are WTM connect Asia and WTM connect China, which join WTM connect Ski and International Golf Travel Market. These unique one-to-one events are targeted at leisure and niche travel markets, allowing exhibitors to exclusively meet with elite hosted buyers.
The World Travel Market events are attended by the global travel and tourism industry’s senior executives to conduct business deals and discover the latest research, insight and opinion.
In 2014, the World Travel Market events facilitated around $7 billion in industry deals from negotiations between the more than 15,000 buyers, 9,500 exhibitors (1,500 main stand holders and 8,000 stand sharers) in attendance of its four events.
WTM is part of Reed travel Exhibitions, the leading events organiser in the travel industry, and is owned by the world’s leading events organiser Reed Exhibitions.
Reed Travel Exhibitions
Reed Travel Exhibitions (RTE) is the world’s leading provider of exhibitions in the travel and tourism industry. Its wide-ranging portfolio of events around the globe covers leisure travel, luxury travel, meetings, incentives and business travel, as well as golf, ski and spa travel.
RTE, which organises more than 22 events around the world, includes three divisions; World Travel Market, IBTM World and International Luxury Travel Market.
RTE is a business unit of Reed Exhibitions.
About Reed Exhibitions
Reed Exhibitions is the world’s leading events organiser, with over 500 events in 43 countries. In 2014 Reed brought together over seven million event participants from around the world generating billions of dollars in business. Today Reed events are held throughout the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific and Africa and organised by 41 fully staffed offices. Reed Exhibitions serves 43 industry sectors with trade and consumer events. It is part of the RELX Group plc, a world-leading provider of information solutions for professional customers across industries.