KLIA climbs a notch in smart travel asia.com 2011

KL International Airport's (KLIA) position as one of travellers' favourite airports was further proven when it moved up a notch, claiming the fourth spot in the "Top 10 Airports Worldwide" category of the SmartTravelAsia.com 2011 Best in Travel Poll. KLIA was ranked fifth in last year's poll. Malaysia Airports managing director Tan Sri Bashir Ahmad said Malaysia Airports was indeed pleased to be recognised as one of the most preferred hubs in the world. "We place great emphasis on continuously enhancing customer experience at all our airports, particularly KLIA by improving our service and facility standards," he said in a statement, here ,Wednesday. Smart Travel Asia is the region's only dedicated online travel magazine with over one million readers worldwide. The readers' votes are based on substantial hands-on travel experience, word-of-mouth at dinnertime chats, as well as ideas of the brands drawn from advertising and editorial exposure in the media, a great deal of this online. Bashir said what made the award more meaningful was that the respondents from Asia made up more than 50 per cent of the total respondents, indicating KLIA's strong presence in this sector, challenging other popular airports in Asia such as Korea's Incheon Airport, Singapore's Changi Airport and Hong Kong International Airport. He said approximately 60 per cent were based in Asia (mainly Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, India, China, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and the Middle East), 20 per cent in UK/Europe and 20 per cent in USA and North America. As many as 92.4 per cent of the voters said they drew their primary image of brands from the Internet and 88.8 per cent said they made travel decisions online. The award was received at KLIA today by Malaysia Airports' senior general manager of Operations Services, Datuk Azmi Murad.