With every destination from Italy to Japan competing for travelers, it’ll take a lot to grab attention to travel to Saudi. But, we had Messi as our brand ambassador, one of the world’s biggest influencers. We could have been happy with a post here and there.

But we chose the right cultural context and moment to capture the world's attention amid significant transfer speculation. With Messi's contract at PSG expiring and him skipping training to visit Saudi, his accepted invite turned global news coverage and online conversation directly to his Instagram posts, giving the world proof of his 'unauthorized' trip.

Saudi Arabia has been closed to leisure tourism up until 2019. Now a big shift in the country’s tourism strategy, means that Saudi wants to go from closed-off to 100 million visits in 2030. At the same time, one of the country’s other approaches to opening-up the country was investing massively in the Saudi football league.

Major players such as Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar were moving to Saudi clubs, and there was huge speculation on whether Lionel Messi was going to make the move to Saudi, especially as his contract with Paris Saint Germain was coming to an end in the summer.

Accordingly, our approach centered on seizing the excitement and the ongoing news coverage surrounding the monumental shifts in Saudi football and leveraging it to direct global attention towards discovering the offerings of tourism in Saudi Arabia as well.

Saudi, which was previously not open to leisure tourism before September 2019, set a goal of reaching 100M visitors by 2030. Our task was not only to reshape the story of the nation, but to also explain where to go, what to do, and make it informative and compelling enough to inspire action and achieve our sky-high ambitions.

Our goals were to enhance the perception of Saudi Arabia as a destination, increase its overall attractiveness, and educate potential tourists about the worthwhile destinations and activities the country had to offer. Although Saudi wasn't yet on many travel bucket lists, it was consistently making headlines in the context of football. Every news outlet was abuzz with discussions about major football transfers to the Saudi league. At that time, the transfer speculation was predominantly centered around the world’s biggest player – Messi – and the possibility of Saudi becoming his next destination.

The Unauthorized Trip

We dared to invite Messi and his family to Saudi May 1st, when he had training scheduled as his football season was still ongoing, and speculation about moving to a Saudi club was rife. We anticipated the news buzz his absence from training would generate, especially with him being in Saudi.

Messi's accepted invite triggered a weeklong PR frenzy. Our trip documentation, shared on both our social media and Messi’s, not only provided evidence for the world’s press to catch him red-handed enjoying Saudi but also showcased Saudi Arabia's tourist allure. Whenever Messi shared images from a different Saudi destination, it prompted global news outlets to broadcast them while highlighting any new disciplinary proceedings updates from his club. So, with the story reaching news channels all over the world, it looked like the press was running a weeklong promotion of a wonderful tourist journey around our country.

We had an ambitious long-term global objective of changing the perception of Saudi travel. We needed the world to start talking about it, so we needed global reach.

We started with Instagram partnership posts showing his Saudi trip, which Messi also shared with his then-488M Instagram followers!

While we anticipated that the trip would garner substantial PR coverage, we aimed to align it with a broader trend. With the impending transfer season, and amidst Messi / Saudi speculations, we strategically extended our invitation to him during this crucial time. What might have been a few sponsored posts and regular content evolved into speculation about football's biggest move ever. This strategic timing ensured all eyes were on our trip.

The trip's Instagram posts and content became the backdrop of every press discussion on Messi's potential Saudi move, with every headline also displaying content that showed the beautiful experiences of Saudi travel.

The campaign primarily centered around photography of Messi’s trip shared through Instagram and press releases to promote his journey. Initially, our focus was on optimizing reach to spread the message far and wide to markets where the reaction was the strongest. However, due to the strategic timing of his visit, most of the material gained traction with global news outlets and sports pages, generating many discussions about Messi's trip in Saudi.

One audacious request turned a regular “influencer” visit into FREE non-stop global news and destination promotion. Renowned news channels and top-tier global outlets, including CNN, Sky News, The Guardian, The Independent, The Associated Press, Reuters, Forbes, the Daily Mail, and MSN, extensively covered our 'unauthorized' trip. These are just a few examples of the extensive coverage the campaign managed to secure, not to mention numerous football channels, blogs, and online portals that also discussed the trip.

Leading to:

- 147 Markets Reached

- 2.2M Engagement

- 5.7K Total Articles

- 11.6B Total Reach

- +150M Estimated Media Value

- 3.8B Positive Reach

Leading to the ‘Highest Organic Performance in The History of Saudi Tourism – the highest organic Google Searches for Visit Saudi across the world.

Additionally, last but not least, ‘Destination Positivity’ increased 9% YOY & Visitation Increased 36% YOY for the same time period.

Saudi is not competing with one or two competitors here. It’s competing with every destination from Bali to New York to Amsterdam, all vying for their share of the tourist wallet and time. These brands have been established for years, with millions of travelers having posted about them and having ingrained cultural heritage as travel hubs for generations. However, Saudi didn't even have leisure tourism until 2019, just four years prior to this campaign, a period that included the biggest travel lockdown the world has ever seen.

Our approach aimed to overcome our country's misconceptions for the highest reach possible. We aimed to get the world to talk about leisure travel in the country and to get the world’s eyes to see that travel to Saudi is much more than you have had in mind, and there is more in the world that you will be excited to see.