Five Years Since Opening for Tourism, Saudi Says it Is a Destination ‘For All’ in New Campaign

Skift Take

In its race to welcome 150 million tourists, Saudi Arabia’s new tourism campaign promises to offer just about everything to everyone.

Josh Corder

“An unexplored territory….Untouched. Uncharted.” That’s the message in Saudi Arabia’s new global tourism campaign to attract overseas travelers to the kingdom.

“This Land is Calling,” a nearly 2-minute video, showcases the conservative country as a land that has it all, from futuristic skyscrapers rising out of the desert, to cultural monuments, to luxury seaside destinations. And the core idea is that visitors can be among the first from outside Saudi to experience it.

The campaign highlights three themes of Saudi Arabia’s tourism offering across six destinations, according to the Saudi Tourism Authority’s website for the campaign. The themes are nature; culture and history; and entertainment. The destinations highlighted are The Red Sea, AlUla, Riyadh, Jeddah, Aseer and Diriyah.

“With this campaign, we hope to ignite the curiosity of the traveler who craves the excitement of a completely new experience – whether in culture, adventure, sport, or entertainment,” said Fahd Hamidaddin, CEO of Saudi Tourism Authority, in a release sent to Skift. He also said the goal is that Saudi be “a destination of choice for all.”

The narrator of the video is a “solo female traveler,” an important choice as Saudi also tries to tackle concerns the country is unsafe for female tourists.

“I was the first. But I won’t be the last,” she says at the end of the video.

‘A Sleeping Giant’

A key aspect of the campaign is showing that Saudi as a tourism destination can satisfy just about every kind of travelers’ taste. From modern hotels to archeological sites to sunny leisure spots you’d find in the Maldives or the Mediterranean.

Unlike Dubai, which is largely known as a luxury and shopping hub, Saudi is building nuanced pockets of experiences all over the kingdom.

Elie Milky, Radisson’s regional vice president of development, has previously noted to Skift how Saudi’s positioning in the travel market is impacting the region: “Saudi Arabia is promoting cultural heritage like Jordan has, it’s promoting mountains like Oman has, it’s promoting countrywide tourism, which now all countries need to do.”

“Saudi is a wake-up call now, it’s a reminder other countries need to be proactive. Dubai as a hub did not pose a threat to all the neighboring countries, but Saudi Arabia is so dominant that it can easily absorb business away from those other countries.”

Why Saudi Arabia Needs a Global Campaign

Tourism is at the core of crown prince Mohammed bin Salman’s (MBS) plan to transform the nation. By 2030, the goal is for 150 million visitors, with 70 million coming from outside Saudi. MBS wants tourism to be the second-largest contributor to the economy behind oil, at 10% of GDP. 

Key Markets

The campaign is launching August 28 in the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, and the United States, showing Saudi’s focus on building up its international tourism standing.

Saudi also has its eye on a handful of other key destinations to boost its numbers.

More than 150,000 Chinese travelers visited Saudi last year, and the Saudi Tourism Authority wants that number to hit half a million this year, Skift was told at a media event in May.

India is another important market for Saudi, intending to attract 7.5 million Indian tourists a year by 2030. In 2023, the kingdom witnessed a 50% increase in the number of Indian tourists as compared to 2022. As many as 1.5 million Indian tourists visited the Middle Eastern nation. The air connectivity between the two countries increased by 31% between 2019 and 2023. Flights now connect 12 major hubs in India with Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dammam.

Video Content

Saudi first opened for international tourism in 2019. Since then, it has invested heavily in celebrity endorsements with promotion on social media and video.

Football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo –  who plays for  Saudi team Al Nassr – was pictured, promoting the small St Regis Red Sea to his 300 million Instagram followers.

Between three Instagram posts, Ronaldo amassed over 30 million likes, tagging Visit Red Sea and The St. Regis Resort Red Sea.

Ronaldo recently published a video on his new YouTube channel promoting The Red Sea – it has 11 million views since being posted six days ago.

Fellow football superstar Lionel Messi has also done advertisements for Saudi Arabia. At the start of the year, his “Beyond What You Think” campaign in Saudi looked to quash “outdated stereotypes” about the country. Last year in May, Messi shared photos from his trip to Diriyah in Saudi Arabia, fulfilling contractual obligations tied to his partnership with the country’s tourism authority. A report in the New York Times said the deal could earn him $25 million over three years.