Photo: Emirates Emirates has won a gold medal at the 2026 Global Performance Marketing Awards, in a new category awarded for the first time this year: Best Travel, Leisure & Experience Campaign.
The award was presented to the company following a comprehensive move to change its affiliate marketing system in the Asia-Pacific region, one of the world's most competitive markets in tourism and aviation.
As part of the move, Emirates reduced its reliance on many advertising partners, focusing on building a more focused set of direct partnerships and investing in the channels that produced the best results.
The results were not long in coming. The company's revenue from performance-based marketing in the Asia-Pacific region grew by 31% in one year.
The winning Emirates team. Photo: EmiratesEmirates notes that digital marketing is a key commercial growth engine, not just an advertising channel. The company's marketing team includes experts in Dubai, alongside more than 60 digital marketers and hundreds of partners worldwide.
The division manages more than 5,000 simultaneous active campaigns worldwide through search engines, flight comparison sites, and marketing partners.
The three main channels of activity, affiliate marketing, paid search and price comparison, together account for more than a third of the new customers who come to the company's website.