Icelandair has claimed a top spot in the annual Technology for Marketing (TFM) Awards, held in London on 6th February. The airline website was voted Best Website Design of the Year by the panel of six industry experts, and beat companies including Odeon and Orange to first place.

"This is award is a great achievement for Icelandair and we’re extremely proud of our accomplishment. The online channel is the backbone of our sales efforts and its important that we do an excellent job in that area. The fact that we’re nominated alongside worldclass companies like Orange, Tesco, HP and Nike shows how far we’ve advanced in this field," said Jon Karl Olafsson, CEO Icelandair.

Over the past two years, Icelandair has redesigned and re-launched its global and local websites in order to better fulfill the needs of its customers. Furthermore, it has made a concerted effort to increase its exposure in all of the key online search engines. This has resulted in better exposure of the Icelandair brand and more high value traffic to its website. The airline reports an rapid increase in online sales in the same period, with the online channel accounting for 44% of all sales in 2006 (up from 29% in 2005).

"Online marketing is a key strategy in our sales and marketing efforts. We are, therefore, extremely pleased to have won this important award. For a company like ours its important to utilize the highest value channels in our marketing and sales efforts. The online channel allows us to effectively increase our marketing reach. Our new-look site is easy to use and provides our customers with all they need to research, plan and book their trip. This award demonstrates our commitment to providing a full service to our customers, and is a success we wish to build on with more innovations and developments in the near future," said Gunnar Már Sigurfinnsson, SVP Sales and Marketing Icelandair.

This is only the latest in a string of recent awards for Icelandair. In 2006, Icelandair was voted Marketing Company of the Year in the Icelandic Marketing Awards. Just recently the Icelandair website was also voted best Icelandic web in 2006 as well as claiming the award for best company website during the annual Icelandic Web Awards.

Icelandair has developed web sites for all of its key markets and offers a wide range of online services. Icelandair has offered information concerning its products and services online since 1995. Today you can on the Icelandair web book all Icelandair flights (and more) and hotels through a partnership with WWTE. The whole booking process was redesigned through our partnership with Amadeus SA and TM Software. Almost all of our tickets sold through the website are E-tickets today. Besides regular tickets Icelandair has also developed a gift certificate solution that enables its customer to create their own personalized gifts. Icelandair has also created a dynamic packaging solution with TM Software, Hugsmiðjan, Kögun, Amadeus SA and Bewotec. This tool is used by Icelandair to offer packages to Iceland as well as tickets to unique Icelandair events like the Iceland Airwaves music festival and the Food and Fun festival.

Detailed information concerning all Icelandair destinations is provided in a partnership with W-Cities. Icelandair has also worked with Google to create content for Google Earth. Icelandair Customer Club members enjoy a range of benefits and services through the site such a point status, point redemption and even point corrections. Newly developed corporate services allow all corporate clients access to a number of services via the Icelandair web site.