After only opening up to leisure tourism in 2019, putting Saudi on the global travel map wasn’t going to be easy. Especially as the country was aiming for 100 million visitor by 2030. However, we had Messi as our brand ambassador.

Knowing that conventional thinking would only get us so far, we had to use Messi's visit in a strategic way to get the world talking about us. So, while the world speculated about Messi potentially joining a Saudi club, we asked Messi to visit the country, missing his PSG training to visit and starting a worldwide PR frenzy.

Saudi Arabia had 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 that global attention towards positioning Saudi Arabia as a tourism destination.

Our task was not only to reshape the story of the nation, but to also explain to tourists 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 tourist 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 world 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.

Since it was only opened in 2019, followed by a global lockdown. The world has never even gotten the chance to perceive Saudi as a tourist destination. We needed to start shifting that perception on a global level, to position Saudi as a travel destination.

As part of our arsenal though, we had Lionel Messi, one of the world's biggest stars had a partnership with our brand, and was planned to visit the country.

Our challenge was: how do we use this visit by Lionel Messi to Saudi to turn heads and have the world see Saudi Arabia as the world's next tourist destination? How do we get the world talking about KSA travel?

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 team contract expiring, we strategically extended our invitation to him during this critical time, causing him to skip his PSG training and visit KSA, sparking a PR frenzy. Consequently, what might have been a few sponsored posts 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.

Insight: During transfer season of the players, the world's eyes are on players every move.

The Unauthorized Trip

We created a stunt by daring to invite Messi to Saudi on May 1st - a date when he was scheduled for his PSG 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.

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

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 trip.

One audacious stunt turned a regular visit into FREE non-stop front-page global news

and unprecedented increase in search & visits, delivering our perceptual & visitation targets. Renowned 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 coverage the campaign managed to secure, not to mention numerous football channels, 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.

The tourism category, while competitive between nations, tend to become quite stale. Everything from government budgeting, its impact on nation brands or complex decision making processes, make tourism campaigns somewhat boring and expected. Most countries land in the 'Explore the beautiful landscape' space, all within the same realm.

Because Saudi Arabia was a special case within world tourism, we had to use unconventional thinking to make great leaps in a short amount of time. Our approach aimed to starting shaping the perception of Saudi as a tourist destination & turning that into action. 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.