AirAsia’s Group head of commercial, Kathleen Tan, has been named as Web in Travel’s (WIT) ‘Marketer of the Year’ at the annual WITovation awards ceremony held in conjunction with the WIT Unplugged Conference 2012 at the Sands Expo and Exhibition Centre in Singapore.
The ‘Marketer of the Year’ award – an editorial choice prize – was presented to Tan in recognition for her achievements in building the AirAsia brand and for possessing great vision and leadership.
WIT, the Singapore-based content and community platform for the travel distribution, marketing and technology space, praised Tan’s breakthrough in cutting through the social media clutter of China with Sina Weibo.
Founder and editor of Web In Travel, Yeoh Siew Hoon said, "While other airlines were wondering what to do with social media, Kathleen blazed the trail.
"With 1.6 million Facebook fans and close to 500,000 million followers on Twitter, as well as presence on Instagram and the AirAsia blog, the brand has created its own media assets which it uses to communicate and engage with customers.
"But it is in China where she’s been a standout. In a market that’s different and complex, she’s become one of the most followed travel personalities on Weibo under the name of Chen Kai Ling.
"She personally posts and replies to messages, holds fan events in cities in China and has built up a fan base of 149,000.
She uses the channel to advertise seat sales with high conversions. She was also one of the first to stick her neck out on mobile, believing this is the channel of the future."
