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 most influential personalities. We could have been happy with a post here and there.

But we chose to get the world talking. While there was endless transfer speculation whether Messi would move to a Saudi club, he skipped PSG training to visit us, ensuring his unauthorized trip went from a regular celebrity partnership to the world looking at what Messi was up to in Saudi all week.

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 Arabia, which was previously not open to leisure tourism before September 2019, set an ambitious 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.

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 Arabia 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 football player – Messi – and the possibility of Saudi Arabia becoming his next destination.

The Unauthorized Trip

We dared to invite Messi to Saudi on May 1st - a date when he was scheduled for his Paris Saint-Germain training, and news speculation about moving to a Saudi club was rife. We anticipated the global conversation his absence from training would generate, especially with him being in Saudi instead of Paris.

Messi's acceptance of our invite triggered a PR frenzy. Our documentation of his trip not only provided evidence for the world’s press to catch him red-handed enjoying Saudi’s tourist allure, it also sparked a worldwide conversation across global media. 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 his journey around Saudi.

This campaign was more about timing than anything else. Any other time this visit would be seen as a regular celebrity partnership. When this campaign happened and how it happened is what led to its success. Due to mega Saudi football transfers and speculation about whether Saudi would be Messi’s next home, the football world was waiting on the edge of its seat.

With the summer transfer season looming, and amidst speculations about Messi potentially moving to Saudi, especially with his contract expiring, we strategically extended our invitation to him during this critical time, causing him to skip his training and visit us, sparking a PR frenzy. Consequently, what might have been a few sponsored posts and regular content evolved into speculation surrounding the possibility of the biggest move in global football transfer history. This strategic timing ensured that all eyes were on our trip.

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 triggered FREE non-stop front-page global news and unprecedented increase in search & visits. 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.