HOUSTON — In an industry that makes a living spotting trends, one is easy to see: the Houston Airport System’s marketing division is doing something right.

For the second straight year, the Houston Airport System was named Marketer of the Year in the transportation category when the American Marketing Association Houston Chapter recently revealed the 20 Houston-area companies, organizations and institutions winning Best in Category during the chapter's 2016-17 awards event.

The Airport System was one of three finalists in the transportation category, topping Joe Myers Imports and METRO for the honor. In addition, the Airport System won the inaugural Sysco’s Marketing Innovator Award. This new award recognizes an individual or company for vision, purpose, resourcefulness and innovation with regards to marketing.

In the marketing categories, award nominees were asked about their marketing initiatives, challenges faced in their industry and how they worked together as a team to contribute to the overall success of their organization. The Airport System earned the transportation category honor again, thanks to using digital technology to enhance the passenger experience and increase non-airline revenues.

In the Sysco’s Marketing Innovator Award category, the Airport System’s commitment to innovative approaches — while focusing on the mission of making passengers happy — highlighted programs that leveraged new technologies in achieving that goal.

Examples of that innovation included using the fly2houston.com website to launch world-first LocusMaps Online’s browser-based interactive wayfinding; displaying live TSA wait times on the website, enabled by HAS IT’s installation of new Bluetooth sensors at TSA security checkpoints; working towards displaying live Immigrations wait time for international arrivals — for which HAS IT worked with Customs and Border Protection to successfully complete a facial recognition technology trial; and meeting customer needs with a SmartRestroom trial at both George Bush Intercontinental Airport and William P. Hobby Airport — utilizing the latest technology to receive actionable passenger feedback on the cleanliness of restrooms.

The Marketer of the Year award is AMA Houston's annual program honoring exceptional marketing work. AMA Houston is the area's premier professional marketing organization the largest AMA Chapter in North America, and was awarded “Gold Chapter of the Year 2016-17.” The 2017 overall winner of Marketer of the Year was the Children’s Museum of Houston.

Judging was done by a national panel of 16 senior marketing professionals who reviewed and scored information submitted about the marketing programs of the category nominees to determine the 60 finalists and the 20 Best in Category winners.